Are: Paerson, Kildow, Mancuso 1-2-3 in super combi DH

ARE, Sweden — Sweden's Anja Paerson continued to tear up her homeland course on Friday, surging to the front of the pack with the fastest time in the morning downhill portion of the super combined at the alpine World Championships.
    Americans were in solid shape headed into the afternoon slalom run (10 a.m. ET start), with Lindsey Kildow second, Julia Mancuso third, Kaylin Richardson 14th and Resi Stiegler 18th. Stiegler and Richardson are slalom standouts and could climb the ranks in the afternoon leg.

ARE, Sweden — Sweden's Anja Paerson continued to tear up her homeland course on Friday, surging to the front of the pack with the fastest time in the morning downhill portion of the super combined at the alpine World Championships.
    Americans were in solid shape headed into the afternoon slalom run (10 a.m. ET start), with Lindsey Kildow second, Julia Mancuso third, Kaylin Richardson 14th and Resi Stiegler 18th. Stiegler and Richardson are slalom standouts and could climb the ranks in the afternoon leg. Both, however, are more than two seconds off Paerson's blistering pace.
    Paerson, winner of Tuesday's super G and fastest in two downhill training runs, skied the downhill combi course in 1 minute, 11 seconds Friday, a whopping .86 better than Kildow. Mancuso was .95 back.
    "I'm psyched with my time. It's a bummer. I wish I hadn't made that mistake," said Richardson, whose mistake came after a three-gate technical corridor shortly after the top section where she admitted to skiing too direct a line after a fallaway turn, barely making the next gate.
    "But I'm still getting a lot of experience in the downhill right now. Every run I learn something new."   
    Stiegler was pleased with her downhill run and added that she feels strong in her slalom skiing right now.
    "It was good. I made one mistake, but for me in downhill I think that it’s really important to get in there because Lindsey, Anja and Marlies [Schild] are very strong in both events and that’s different for me. But I think I'm doing pretty good," Stiegler said.   
  Paerson, 25, has five World Championships gold and seven total medals and is poised to claim more hardware. She won the combined bronze at the 2006 Olympics, too.
    Kildow, starting two spots behind Paerson, caught her right ski edge shortly out of the gate and was immediately 0.38 seconds off Paerson's pace. But Kildow recovered nicely and lost less than a half-second on Paerson the rest of the way down to give her a great shot at securing her second medal of these championships. Kildow earlier grabbed silver in the super G.
    Kildow declined to speak to reporters between runs as she ran back to the team hotel to warm up for the slalom leg.     
    Swede Nike Bent was fourth, Austrian Nicole Hosp fifth, France's Ingrid Jacquemod sixth and Germany's Maria Riesch sixth.
    Austria's Schild, the World Cup slalom points leader, was 10th, 1.91 seconds behind Paerson but within striking distance of a podium spot. Paerson and Schild finished second and third behind Janica Kostelic in combined at the last worlds in Bormio, Italy, then switched positions at the Torino Olympics last year.
    Richardson, whose best super combi finish on the World Cup is a 15th this season in Reiteralm, is poised to better that result in her first World Championships race.   
    "It's World Championships. You can't hold anything back," she said.