Record Breaking Cuche Claims Gold

The 34-year-old eclipsed Austrian Stephan Eberharter, who was 33 when he landed super-G gold in St Moritz, Switzerland in 2003.

Swiss Didier Cuche became the oldest Alpine skiing world champion when he used his experience to comfortably win the super-G on a steep, icy piste on Wednesday.

The 34-year-old eclipsed Austrian Stephan Eberharter, who was 33 when he landed super-G gold in St Moritz, Switzerland in 2003.

Cuche, winner of the World Cup downhill title last season, found the best line down the challenging Bellevarde course and mastered tricky turns to clock one minute 19.41 seconds in the opening men's event.

Peter Fill of Italy took the silver medal 0.99 seconds back while Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal was third, 1.02 seconds behind the winner on a beautiful day in this picturesque French Alps resort.

"When I saw this morning how icy the piste was I thought it was not a race for me," said Cuche of a course that was designed for the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics and had rarely been used since.

"Once on the course everything clicked and I just had a lot of fun skiing down that hill, even if I did survive a scare four turns from the finish," he told reporters.

There were a few spectacular crashes including one suffered by American Ted Ligety, who escaped unhurt after losing his balance coming out of a turn and sliding down the track on his back to land in the safety netting.

FAVOURITES STRUGGLE

Several favourites struggled, among them American daredevil Bode Miller and Austria's Hermann Maier, arguably the greatest super-G skier of all time. Both finished outside the top-10.

The 26-year-old Fill, who posted his first World Cup win in a downhill in Lake Louise in November, enjoyed the tough venue.

"This is different from what we're used to but it was exciting," he said.

"Getting silver behind Cuche, who was unbeatable today, is great. I couldn't have dreamed of a better way to start the championships."

Powerful all-rounder Svindal, back to his best after a horror crash in December 2007, also approved of the piste.

"I quite like it because it makes a change but it was very difficult," said the 26-year-old Norwegian.

"I didn't feel that great and I didn't think my run was good enough for a place on the podium so I'm happy enough."

The men are back on the Bellevarde mountain on Saturday for the blue-riband downhill.