The first major alpine skiing World Cup competition to be held in Bulgaria for more than a quarter of a century, the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup 2009, won acclaim for the hosts but also a fair amount of criticism from some of the participants.

The World Cup put the little mountainous Bulgarian town of Bansko on the map and presented visitors with three days of unprecedented showmanship from the elite of the world’s female skiers.

The first day was the bonus downhill race on Friday February 27, awarded to Bansko after the cancellation of the St Moritz competition on December 21 2008. Swiss skier Fabienne Suter won the first women’s World Cup downhill on Friday. This was her third career win and the first this season, propelling her to sixth place in the World Cup standings. Suter’s previous two World Cup wins came in the super giant slalom discipline.

"Downhill is not my favourite discipline. I must admit I was surprised with the win," Suter said after the race, as quoted by Dnevnik daily. Suter finished at 1:45.68 minutes, more than a second faster than second-placed Andrea Fischbacher of Austria (1:46.83 minutes), who recorded the best time in training.

The second day began with heavy criticism of the course from third-placed Anja Pärson of Sweden, who had failed to finish on Friday. Apparently concentrating more on her contempt for the slope rather than the race itself, Pärson’s efforts on the second day were botched yet again, missing the gate on the upper part of the slope and stopping, seemingly suffering a knock to her shoulder.

Meanwhile, amid vocal flak emanating from Pärson, the second day ended with Fischbacher, who used her super G skills to perfection to give Austria their first victory in a women’s downhill for nearly two years on February 28. Fischbacher, who was second on the arduous Bunderitsa course behind Suter in February 27’s first downhill, won the second World Cup victory of her career in one minute 45.81 seconds.

It proved a memorable weekend for the white queens of Austria. On February 28, Fischbacher, the super G bronze medallist at the world championships in Val d’Isère earlier the same month, beat Slovenia’s Tina Maze by 0.26 seconds. Suter made it onto the podium again, this time in third place.

Bansko’s favourite lady, who was mobbed on arrival, the American World Cup leader Lindsey Vonn, clinched her second straight downhill title on March 1. So far, she has won the last three World Cup super G races and captured gold in the discipline to open the World Championships last month. She then went on to win gold in downhill. With six races to go, Vonn leads the overall World Cup standings by 391 points over her best friend, Germany’s Maria Riesch.

This was unprecedented for the American ski team, as no American lady has ever won back-to-back World Cup overall titles or captured two discipline titles in the same season.

"I really wanted to have a win here in Bansko," said Vonn. "The fans have been really incredible and today was a great end to the weekend. I was able to secure the downhill globe, I made good points for the overall and I’m right in there for the super G title now. All in all, it was a great weekend and I hope we come back to Bansko." Vonn’s immaculate performance of 1:14.49 bested Suter by over a half a second- and third-place finisher Maze by 0.91 seconds.