Austria's Christoph Gruber clocked the fastest time in the opening training run on Wednesday for the first Alpine World Cup downhill of the season.

After heavy overnight snow delayed the start of the practice session by over two hours, Gruber charged down the men's Olympic course in a time of one minute, 54.27 seconds, crossing just .01 seconds in front of Italy's Kurt Sulzenbacher with 1:54.28.

Swiss Didier Cuche was just .01 seconds further adrift in 1:54.29 pursued by a pair of U.S. skiers, former overall World Cup champion Bode Miller (1:54.52) and Marco Sullivan (1:54.54).

Last year's winner Fritz Strobl of Austria had a quiet first run with the 22nd best time, while Olympic champion Antoine Deneriaz of France also eased into training by posting the 30th best effort.

Skiers are scheduled to have two more training runs on Thursday and Friday followed by the season's first speed event, a downhill on Saturday followed by a super-G on Sunday.