Vonn kicks off world champs with Super-G gold

In-form American Lindsey Vonn kicked off her World Ski Championships campaign with gold in the women's Super-G here on Tuesday.

Vonn picked up two silvers in the 2007 worlds in Are, Sweden, but had vowed to carry her impressive form on this season's World Cup circuit through to the two weeks of competition at this French Alpine resort.

"It's incredible to start with a gold. I always wanted to be a world champions and today that happened. It's amazing," said the American, who is leading the overall standings in the World Cup which she won last year.

"Now I'd obviously like to win another (medal)."

Vonn clocked 1min 20.73sec over the remodelled 1,926-metre-long Rhone-Alpes piste, which has a 600-metre drop from start to finish.

She was 0.34sec ahead of France's Marie Marchand-Arvier with Austrian Andrea Fischbacher a further 0.06sec adrift in third.

Vonn skied a fast first third of the race before falling behind Marchand-Arvier's second split.

But the 24-year-old American fought back and showed all her downhill power to make up the deficit on the remainder of the course, averaging 93.5kph down the gruelling slope.

Starting with bib number two, the 23-year-old Marchand-Arvier took the early lead and held it for most of the session until Vonn flew over the finish line.

"It's a magical day for me today," said Marchand-Arvier, whose previous best Super-G finish was a 9th place in the Garmisch World Cup event on the weekend.

"I was just so full of energy when I woke up this morning."

Although also not noted as a strong Super-G skier, Vonn surprised everyone by winning at Garmisch, the last before the worlds, and warned on Monday that the tough course here could be a good omen.

The demanding piste, which was icy and bumpy, claimed a number of skiers who failed to make the tight turns, including Sweden's Anja Paerson, who had dominated the worlds two years ago, and Austrian veteran Renate Goetschl.

Vonn admitted that the course had been "really tough. It was getting darker and darker and the slope was very bumpy".

"I knew that to make the podium it had to be perfect. I really focused," added the American.

"At the top of the course, there was a very bumpy part where the girls were crashing out. But I changed my line after the course inspection."