Marco Odermatt won the opening men's FIS Alpine Ski World Cup event of the season ©Getty Images

Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt got his International Ski Federation Alpine Ski World Cup season off to a flying start after denying Austrian Roland Leitinger a home giant slalom victory in Sölden.

Leitinger, who was searching for his first World Cup win, put himself in pole position after posting a sensational opening run time of 1min 3.93sec.

But Leitinger agonisingly missed out on victory on home snow, finishing 0.07 off Odermatt’s mark after pulling out all the stops in the final run of the day.

The 30-year-old, a 2017 giant slalom world champion, had to settle for second with 2:06.01.

Odermatt was in second after a first run of 1:04.14 before finishing in 1:01.80 in the second to secure a combined winning time of 2:05.94.

It was a great start to the campaign for Odermatt who will be looking to go one better than last season when he finished behind France’s Alexis Pinturault in both the giant slalom and overall World Cup standings.

Žan Kranjec of the Czech Republic completed the podium places in Sölden after crossing in 2:06.04 - 0.10 behind Odermatt.

Gino Caviezel of Switzerland came fourth, while defending World Cup champion Pinturault started the season with a fifth place finish.

Norway’s Lucas Braathen, who won the season opener in Sölden last year, finished seventh on his first World Cup race since sustaining a serious knee injury in January.