Val d'Isere, France - John Kucera of Canada upset the favourites to win the men's downhill at the alpine ski world championships in Val d'Isere on Saturday.

Kucera posted 2 minutes 07.01 seconds, to edge super-g winner Didier Cuche of Switzerland by four hundredths of a second.

Fellow Swiss Carlo Janka was 0.94 seconds back in third place.

Kucera took advantage of an early start in a fog-interrupted race to give Canada a first-ever world championship downhill gold.

Five of the leading seven were among the first 10 starters, including Kucera who was number two behind Austrian Hermann Maier.

The 24-year-old from Calgary had already shown good form at the championships with a sixth place in the super-g on Thursday.

But he had previously won only one World Cup race, a super-g in November 2006 in Lake Louise, Canada, and all three of his previous World Cup podiums were in the super-g discipline.

"It hasn't really sunk in yet. It feels a little strange," Kucera said.

"This is my first downhill podium place, so it feels pretty exciting.

"I came down after Hermann Maier who is a great racer and has been on good form in training, and I was ahead of him by over a second so I knew it was looking like a good result."

Kucera's victory was a boost for Canada with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver just a year away.

He had to wait until the last to be confirmed winner after Austrian Michael Walchhofer was allowed a second run.

The 2003 downhill winner had been allowed to leave the gate after the race had been stopped briefly because of fog. On appeal by the Austrian team he restarted as the second last of the 38-man field, improving from 12th to ninth, 1.43 seconds slower than Kucera.

However the race jury later ruled that the result of the first run would stand following study of video film showing that the race had, in fact, been stopped after Walchhofer had already started.

It put the Austrian back into 12th place, 1.84 seconds behind Kucera and a place behind defending champion Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway.

Other racers also had to cope with sudden poor visibility, with Bode Miller of the United States unfortunate to have to cope with a fog bank just before organizers halted the race a first time. Miller eventually had to be content with eighth place.

Also among the favourites to fail were Didier Defago of Switzerland, winner of the downhills in Kitzbuehel and Wengen, who had posted fasted sector times before crashing out. (dpa)