LAKE LOUISE, Canada (Reuters) - France's Olympic champion Carole Montillet won the first women's World Cup downhill of the Alpine ski season Friday with a repeat of her victory in Lake Louise last year.

Skiing under gray skies and with powder snow falling steadily, Montillet made a mistake at the top of the run but powered down the Olympic downhill course to beat Germany's Hilde Gerg by 0.16 of a second.

It was the fifth World Cup victory of her career.

The 30-year-old, World Cup super-G champion and doyenne of the French team, won in Lake Louise last year when she also finished second in another downhill and third in a super-G.

American Kirsten Clark finished third, three tenths of a second behind Montillet.

Italy's former World Cup champion and Olympic silver medallist Isolde Kostner returned to the mountain where last year she had a crash that ended her season, but her run was disappointing and she finished 29th.

"I'm not very happy right now," she said.

Canada's reigning world champion Melanie Turgeon was absent after suffering a back injury last month.

Fri Dec 5, 2:18 PM ET , Reuters

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Montillet Wins Again in Lake Louise
Fri Dec 5, 4:44 PM ET, Reuters

By Chris Welner

LAKE LOUISE, Canada (Reuters) - Olympic champion Carole Montillet won the first women's downhill of the season on Friday to add another Lake Louise World Cup trophy to last year's collection.

The French skier, also a winner in the Canadian Rocky Mountain resort last year, pushed Germany's Hilde Gerg off the top step of the podium with a time of one minute and 34.03 seconds.

American Kirsten Clark placed third in the first race of a double-downhill and super-G weekend.

All three racers mounted the podium in the same race for the second consecutive year but it was Montillet, 30, who wore the biggest grin to go with the red leader's bib she will wear in Saturday's downhill.

"For 12 or 13 years, this is the place I love the most," she said. "We feel alone here on the slope. It's peaceful. I feel like the king of the world here."

Montillet placed first and second in downhills here last year and was third in the super-G.

Gerg, 28, felt ecstasy and agony at Lake Louise last year, winning the first downhill before badly injuring her knee a day later.

Friday she skied through her danger zone and fell short on the clock by just 16 hundredths of a second.

"It's good when you go through the turn where you got hurt, then you can say okay you can go for it, and it goes farther away in the head," said Gerg. "I had two training runs and was ready to go to the limit. This was perfect."

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Clark, who placed third in the overall downhill standings last year, skied a technically solid race just three-tenths back and lost out to Montillet on the bottom flats.

"I'm going to go back to the hotel and watch some video tonight and find out where I can make those three-tenths disappear," Clark said.

Hometown favorite Emily Brydon, who placed in the top five in all three training runs, carried Canada's hopes but could manage only a 25th place.

"I know I can do more and it's just a matter of time. I want my revenge and I know what I can do and I'm going to deliver," she said.

"I had such good training runs that I needed to be brought back to reality. I'll take this as a learning step and go for it again tomorrow."

Italian Isolde Kostner, the two-time overall World Cup downhill champion who won four races at Lake Louise before suffering a concussion here in a crash last season, was 29th.

"I was bad today," she said. "The sight was bad and I was bad."

The women will have a second chance at the downhill in Saturday's second race before Sunday's super-G.