Bode Miller stayed on course for a super-combined gold medal with a spectacular downhill run at the world championships on Monday.

The daredevil American, who missed out on a medal in the super-G and downhill in this French Alps resort, narrowly avoided a crash as he clocked the second fastest time behind Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal. Miller acrobatically managed to lift himself up after coming out of the tricky Ancolie pass on the lower section of the piste.

Svindal was timed at one minute 30.99 seconds on the steep, icy Bellevarde slope.

Miller was 0.04 seconds back and is a much better slalom skier than the Norwegian.

Slalom specialist Jean-Baptiste Grange of France claimed the fourth fastest time, 1.10 seconds behind Svindal.

Fellow Frenchman Adrien Theaux was third, 0.91 seconds back, but is not competitive in slaloms and has only an outside chance of a medal.

In the absence of overall World Cup leader Ivica Kostelic, out with a back injury, Croatia were relying on Natko Zrncic-Dim who recorded the sixth best time behind Slovenia's Andrej Jerman.

Benjamin Raich's hopes of handing the Austrian men's team their first medal of the championships vanished when he skied out of the downhill.

The super-combined comprises a shortened downhill and a slalom run, with the times added to determine the winner.

The slalom starts at 1600 GMT.