Matthias Mayer of Austria won the first men's downhill World Cup of the season at Lake Louise ©Getty Images

Austria claimed a one-two finish at Lake Louise as International Skiing Federation Alpine Skiing World Cup action returned to North America for the first time in almost two years.

In the first downhill event of the World Cup season, victory went to double Olympic champion Matthias Mayer in 1min 47.74sec.

Mayer won gold in the downhill discipline at Sochi 2014, and claimed gold in the Super-G at Pyeongchang 2018.

He edged out compatriot Vincent Kriechmayr by 0.23 seconds, with the current world downhill champion forced to settle for second place.

Switzerland’s Beat Feuz, who has won the World Cup downhill title for the past four seasons, was in third place, 0.35 seconds adrift of Mayer.

Fourth place went to Marco Odermatt of Switzerland, who finished 0.40 behind the winner, with Austria’s Max Franz in fifth, 0.56 off the pace.

The skiers had to wait 24 hours longer than scheduled to get the downhill World Cup season underway, after yesterday’s race at Lake Louise was cancelled due to heavy snowfall.

Until today, Alpine skiing World Cup racing had not taken place in the US since Beaver Creek in December 2019, with the coronavirus pandemic restricting the World Cup circuit last year to Europe only.

More World Cup action is scheduled on the course tomorrow, with a Super-G event due to take place.