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British skeleton medal hope Lizzy Yarnold will arrive at the Sochi Olympics as the FIBT World Cup champion after clinching the title in Konigssee, Germany on Friday, with American Noelle Pikus-Pace winning the weather-affected race.

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Britain's Lizzy Yarnold was crowned overall women's skeleton World Cup champion on Friday, after finishing in joint-ninth place in the final race of the season in Germany.

She didn't finish on the podium for the first and only time over the eight-race season, but her position was enough to hold off race winner Noelle Pikus-Pace of the United States.

Pikus-Pace lead the field after the first run with a time of 52.92 seconds, and after heavy snow forced the cancellation of the second run was awarded the victory.

The win means that the American ended the season with four first place finishes, the same as Yarnold.

Austria's Janine Flock finished second in a race which also doubled as the European Championships.

She was 0.44 seconds behind Pikus-Pace with 53.36.

Yarnold's teammate Shelley Rudman posted an impressive third-place finish exactly half-a-second behind Pikus-Pace, only 0.06 behind Flock.

Yarnold finished 152 points ahead of Pikus-Pace in the standings, benefiting from the American's disqualification and loss of 225 points in the opening race of the year.

The pair are expected to be the favourites for gold in Sochi next month.