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Gut-Behrami claims downhill to top World Cup standings

Lara Gut-Behrami en route to downhill success in Val di Fassa. ©AFP

Val di Fassa (Italy) (AFP) - Lara Gut-Behrami followed up her two world championship gold medals with downhill success in Italy on Friday to go top of the World Cup overall standings.

The 29-year-old Swiss skier left the championships at Cortina d'Ampezzo with the giant slalom and super-G titles, and bronze in the downhill.

And her fine form continued in Val di Fassa as she notched up her first downhill win in over a year at the main expense of Austria's Ramona Siebenhofer, runner-up at two hundredths of a second, with her fellow Swiss and world downhill champion Corinne Suter (at 0.26) completing the podium.

Gut-Behrami, who won the World Cup's big crystal globe in 2016, took charge of this season's overall standings for the first time from Petra Vlhova, who came in ninth and who has topped the standings since the second race of the season in November.

She boasts six wins among nine podium finishes from her last 10 races, and made sure of her 10th career downhill with a near perfect performance.

"It was a good run for sure, I was quickest on a 'flat' segment for the first time in a downhill, it's very positive," she said.

"The most important thing for me is to ski well, to be consistent.It's a very long season, anything can happen, we can talk about the standings again when it gets to the finals."

This latest success, her 31st,  moves her into 10th in the women's World Cup list of all-time best skiers, level with her compatriot Erika Hess.

The Italian resort stages a second women's downhill, initially scheduled for Yanking in China, on Saturday.

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