By Patrick Vignal

Anja Paerson became the first skier to win world titles for all five Alpine skiing events when she blazed to downhill victory with another dream run at the Are championships on Sunday.

The insatiable Swede, who came here without a win from the entire season and stormed to victories in the super-G and the super-combined, destroyed the field again on her way to her third gold medal from as many events.

The bubbly 25-year-old, who also won golds for the slalom and the giant slalom at previous world championships, grabbed the piece missing from her collection by clocking a winning time of one minute 26.89 seconds.

American Lindsey Kildow won the silver medal, 0.40 second back, with Austrian Nicole Hosp taking the bronze, 0.48 second off the pace.

Cheered on by roars of approval from the partisan crowd, Paerson led at all split times and stayed comfortably ahead despite a few mistakes in the intermediate section of a relatively short, technical course leaving no room for lapses in concentration.

"It was one of my worst downhills of the week but I kept fighting all the way down," the local favourite, who had set the pace in training, said after winning her seventh gold from world championships and staying on course for a clean sweep here.

"To win after such a fight is even more exciting," she added

Kildow undermined her chances with a costly error on the upper part of the piste and had to be content with her second silver of the two-week championship after the super-G.

Hosp set the early pace before making it three bronze medals from as many women's races for an Austrian team who had come here dreaming of more precious trophies.

Many of the favourites struggled in a race staged in poor light with overcast skies but none of the foggy patches that had made the men's downhill so tricky.

Austrian speed queen Renate Goetschl, who had won the last three World Cup downhills staged before the championships, had an error-ridden run and ended up seventh.

The 31-year-old Goetschl had been hoping for her first major title since she won downhill gold at the 1999 world championships in Vail, Colorado.

By winning three golds from the same championships, Paerson emulated her great rival, Croatia's Janica Kostelic, who won the downhill, slalom and combined titles two years ago in Bormio, Italy, and is currently taking time out from the sport.