Anne-Caroline Chausson (FRA, Volvo-Cannondale) is quite used to winning the downhill so it felt a bit strange for her to be wearing a #15 bib on her World Championship rainbow jersey. After one of her career's worst runs last week in Scotland, she was re-focused on dominating round #2.

"I was really super motivated for this race after last weekend," Chausson confirmed. "I didn't like that course and I just wanted to forget about it, so I went home for two or three days."

She earned 50 points toward the overall championship when she won Sunday morning's qualifying round, then another 200 in the afternoon's finals when she beat Sabrina Jonnier (FRA, Intense Cycles) by nine seconds. But besides Jonnier, who now takes the overall leader's jersey from Tracy Moseley (GBR, Team Kona), the faces on the podium were less than familiar this week.

Because it began to rain during the women's final and, as we know, rain equals slower times, those women who came down early in the finals posted faster times than the top-five qualifiers, who either crashed or slid out of contention.

Missy Giove (USA, Global Racing Team) aggravated an injured knee suffered in Friday's practice, while teammate Marielle Saner (SUI, Team Global Racing) crashed just seconds from the finish line.

Other top finishers, Brits Fionn Griffiths (Ancillotti) and Moseley just couldn't put fast runs together as they struggled to keep their tires gripping on the wet open sections. This opened the door for two newcomers to the World Cup, Austrians Petra Bernhard (AUT, Rainer-Wurz.com) and Anita Molcik (AUT, Bank of Austria National Team), who each sat in the leader's hotseat and finished 3rd and 4th, respectively, while Celine Gros (FRA, Morzine Avoriaz) finished 5th.

"The course was completely different from qualifying," said Chausson. "I had to choose a mud tire for the last off-camber section, and on the rocks it was really bad, but I didn't crash. The tires were wet, but everywhere in the forest it was dry."

Jonnier had come down earlier, and thus had slightly better conditions to combine with an all-around solid run. She occupied the hotseat until Chausson finally slid her way down the course, but was beaten by the champion by nine seconds.

"I didn't have a good run," said Jonnier. "It was difficult in the rain. This morning I wanted a good run but did a mistake in qualifying and was also tired from the Four Cross last night. But the weather was bad for all of us."

Jonnier did though earn enough points to wear the leader's jersey for the first time in her career and it was not the only be worn atop the podium.

— Ari Cheren, MountainZone.com Correspondent