Felix Neureuther moved top of the slalom standings as Marcel Hirscher skied out of Saturday's meet at Wengen in the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup.
There were initial fears for the race due to 20 centimetres of snowfall at the Swiss venue, but workers managed to clear the course to start the contest on time.
When the action began Neureuther could only place fifth after his first run with a time of 55.35 seconds.
However, the German turned it around on his second attempt, clocking a 51.58secs to beat Italian Stefano Gross - victor in Adelboden last weekend - to top spot by just 0.2secs.
Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen was rewarded for two consistent runs as he completed the podium.
Kristoffersen came home ahead of Alexis Pinturault and Alexander Khoroshilov who rounded off the top five.
Mattias Hargin harboured hopes of taking first place as he went quickest in the first run of the day.
The Swede did not fare so well on his second attempt, though, and had to settle for sixth.
His disappointment was not as big as Hirscher's, after he returned a did not finish in a slalom World Cup race for the first time since March 2012.
The Austrian, who has two slalom wins this term, straddled a gate midway down his first run and now trails Hirscher by 44 points in the discipline's standings.