Tessa Worley wins World Cup season opener in Soelden

Tessa Worley has won the first World Cup race of the new alpine skiing season, the giant slalom at Soelden, Austria.

France's double world giant slalom champion was third after the first run, but produced an outstanding second run to secure her 13th World Cup triumph.

Worley has spoken of her determination to put a disappointing PyeongChang Olympic Games behind her and she made the best possible start in Austria.

First-run leader Federica Brignone was second with Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin third.

With the course for the first run shortened due to adverse weather, Brignone set the quickest time of 58.71 seconds to lead by 0.24 from defending World Cup giant slalom champion Viktoria Rebensburg.

Worley was four-tenths off the pace in third with Shiffrin a further two-tenths behind in fourth.

The top four remained the same after the second run, but the order changed markedly.

Shiffrin skied below her best but did enough to move into the lead before Worley descended in a blisteringly quick 1:01.40 to go in front by nearly three-quarters of second.

Germany's 2010 Olympic gold medallist Rebensburg struggled badly, failing to break the top 10 on the second run and failing to dislodge Shiffrin from second.

That left just Brignone to go, and the Italian could not match Worley's pace.

She was sixth quickest on the second run to take second place ahead of Shiffrin, with Worley celebrating her first win since Lenzerheide in January.

Ragnhild Mowinckel, who won two silver medals at PyeongChang, finished fifth and was one of four Norwegians in the top 10.

The next World Cup Ladies' event is the slalom at Levi, Finland on 17 November.