The women's downhill race at the Alpine Skiing World Cup in Crans Montana has been rescheduled due to foggy followed by soft snow conditions ©Getty Images

The women’s downhill race at the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) Alpine Skiing World Cup in Crans-Montana, Switzerland has been rescheduled due to dangerous slope conditions on the course.

The race was originally due to begin at 11am CEST but fog led to an initial two-hour delay.

During the delay the soft areas of snow on the course were salted, however after forerunners tested the course in advance of a planned 1pm CEST start officials agreed it was not safe for racing to take place today.

"At the end the snow was too soft," said FIS chief race director Peter Gerdol.

"Even with the salt, it didn't really work with this temperature.

"The feedback from the forerunners was really clear - it is too soft, it is too dangerous, so this is why we decided then to cancel the race."

The downhill race has now been rescheduled for tomorrow, with the super-G race, which had been due to take place then, cancelled and not replaced.

A second training run had taken place in advance of the downhill race yesterday, with the fastest time being posted by Slovenia’s Ilka Stuhec in a time of 1min 26.75sec.