Sandra Naeslund will be looking to increase her lead at the top of the ski cross rankings with victory in Innichen ©Getty Images

Sweden's Sandra Naeslund will be looking to continue her excellent start to the season at the International Ski Federation Ladies' Ski Cross World Cup event at Wintersprtverein in Innichen.

Naeslund has won two of the three events so far and currently sits top of the ski cross leaderboard with 260 points.

However, she is only 20 points ahead of Germany's Heidi Zacher, who has a good history on the Italian course having won both of last year's events there.

After winning three consecutive medals at the start of the season, Zacher, who has won ten Ski Cross World Cup medals in her career, will be looking to go one better this time around.

There will also be competition from Fanny Smith from Switzerland, who won the last event in Montafon, Austria.

Filip Flisar won last year's event in Innichen ©Getty Images
Filip Flisar won last year's event in Innichen ©Getty Images

The men's event is far more open with three different athletes having won each of the first three races of the season, Sergey Ridzik of Russia, Viktor Andersson of Sweden and Canada's Christopher Del Bosco.

Terence Tchiknavorian of France currently tops the ski cross leaderboard, despite being without a World Cup win this season, and will be looking to extend his lead in Italy.

Slovakia's Filip Flisar won last year's race in Innichen and could once again be challenging for a medal, although he is yet to finish on the podium this season.

Olympic champion Jean-Frédéric Chapuis finished third in the last event in Montafon and is likely to push the front-runners for gold.

The event starts with qualifying tomorrow and will run until December 22.