Corinne Suter beat out Sofia Goggia by 0.11 seconds ©Getty Images

Corinne Suter won the first downhill race of the women's International Ski Federation (FIS) Alpine Ski World Cup season, continuing where she left off last campaign.

The Swiss won the downhill crystal globe for the 2019-2020 season, and edged out Olympic champion Sofia Goggia by 0.11sec in Val-d'Isère in France.

Suter completed the course in 1min 44.62sec to record a first win of the new season, and Switzerland's first victory on the women's World Cup circuit this season.

It was also a first podium of the season for Italy's Goggia, while third-placed Breezy Johnson of the United States had never achieved a top-three finish at an FIS Alpine Ski World Cup race before.

Petra Vlhová of Slovakia, the overall World Cup leader, finished 26th.

None of the top five skiers in the overall standings placed in the top 15.

There were some worrying wipeouts on the challenge course, including from Nicole Schmidhofer - winner of the downhill crystal globe two seasons ago - and reigning overall queen Federica Brignone.

The Austrian and Italian were among five skiers to crash on the same part of the run, but thankfully appear to have escaped serious injury.

Another downhill race is scheduled tomorrow, followed by a super-G contest on Sunday (December 20).