The Austrian won in a quickfire time of 1min 50.13sec, retaining her lead at the halfway stage and breaking her own Mount Van Hoevenberg track record.

Canadian Elisabeth Vathje scooped silver with a combined effort of 1:50.39 from her two runs, over a quarter of a second behind double European champion Flock.

Lizzy Yarnold, the reigning Olympic gold medallist from Great Britain, was third with a time of 1:50.46.

Russia's Elena Nikitina was fourth in front of Britain's Laura Deas.

"It's a hard and a tough track," Flock said. 

"I like to be more focused and more concentrated, because it's very hard.

"It's very rough, it's bumpy, it's not good for your head.

"But it's a special, nice track with nice, round, cool rhythm. 

"Yes, I love Placid."

Flock's first run was 54.69, 0.15 seconds below the track mark she set last month. 

She was slower on her second run but still prevailed and she added: "It's awesome. 

"It's the best thing that can happen for me. 

"It's the best thing when you start the season with a good result."

The 23-year-old Vathje led a trio of Canadians into the top-seven, with lightening-quick speed down the 1,455-metre chute, for her seventh career podium finish on the elite skeleton circuit. 

"Lake Placid is a really cool track," said Vathje. 

"It is super different than all of the others and it feels like you are in a washing machine when you go down.

"I never thought that first race I would be on the podium and I had no idea where I was going to be this week. 

"I just wanted to go fast on the start and let it fly."

Vathje got off the ice and into her mother's arms in celebration.

"She's going to be at all the races this year," Vathje said of her mother, Rita.

"She gets accreditation so she can be part of the action, and she's a massive part to my success." 

Compatriot Jane Channell matched her best result in Lake Placid in sixth-place with fellow-Canadian Mirela Rahneva, who earned a bronze-medal in Lake Placid a year ago, finished in seventh place.

"This is a great start to the year for our entire team," added Vathje. 

"It is super exciting to have all three of us girls in the top-seven. 

"It will be interesting to see where this takes us this year."

Yarnold described third place as a "good start to the season". 

"It gives me a platform to push on from," she said.

Reigning World Cup overall champion Jacqueline Lolling of Germany was eighth. 

Elsewhere, women's bobsleigh Olympic champion Kaillie Humphries opened the 2017-2018 Olympic season with her 20th World Cup win. 

The Canadian athlete, and her brakewoman Melissa Lotholz, pushed the US pairing of world champion Elana Meyers Taylor and Lauren Gibbs into a close second place by three hundredths of a second. 

Third place went to the German duo of Stephanie Schneider and Lisa Marie Buckwitz. 

By securing her first ever top-three finish, Schneider, the 2016 junior world champion, pushed the defending World Cup title holder Jamie Greubel Poser and Aja Evans, of the US, into fourth place by one hundredth of a second.

Celebrating her best World Cup result to date was the Canadian athlete Christine de Bruin and Cynthia Appiah who finished sixth in Lake Placid.

The junior world champions Mica McNeill and Mica Moore, of Great Britain, finished eighth. 

The men's two-man season began with a maiden World Cup win for Germany's Nico Walther.

Pushed by Christian Poser, the duo were timed at 1:51.92.

Two American teams had to settle for the minor medals on home ice, with Nick Cunningham driving former track and field star Ryan Bailey to silver on 1:52.03.

Codie Bascue and Carlo Valdes were clocked at 1:52.07 for bronze.

The men's skeleton and a second two-man event will be held tomorrow.

Varying ice conditions means there will be no four-man held in Lake Placid.