Lindsey Kildow broke through at a major championship for the first time and won two silver medals at the Alpine Skiing World Championships in Are, Sweden. Then she was injured in training.

Julia Mancuso also won silver in combined, then went home early citing exhaustion.

Bode Miller led the downhill portion of the combined but lost his advantage in the slalom leg. After straddling a gate and tweaking his knee in the slalom race, Miller left a championship medal-less for the second year in a row.

Ted Ligety took fourth place in the giant slalom, missing out on a medal by seven hundredths of a second.

The world championships were a mix of success, near misses and failure for the U.S. ski team. "We had a great championships on the women's side and we came really close on the men's side," U.S. Alpine director Jesse Hunt said.

Without Miller, Kildow and Mancuso, the Americans finished last in the team competition that concluded the competition yesterday.

"It's a tough way to end it. We didn't have our top [athletes]," Hunt said. "We're a little bit bruised up and I think we could use some rest before the next races."

The men's team failed to bring home a medal for the first time since the 1999 worlds in Vail, Colo. "There's no reason to panic now," Hunt said. "Our athletes can ski fast, they've had good results on the World Cup and they showed they can perform here."

The women's World Cup circuit resumes with a giant slalom and slalom next weekend in Sierra Nevada, Spain -- races Kildow will miss due to her knee injury. The men have two downhills and a slalom in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

Kildow had never won a medal at a worlds or Olympics until she took silver in the super-G that opened the competition after three days of weather delays. She won another silver in downhill before her fall in training forced her to pull out of the slalom and team events.

In both of her medal performances, Kildow finished behind Anja Paerson, who won three golds, one bronze and silver in the team event in her home championships.

Mancuso also placed second to Paerson, in combined.

Mancuso's next best result was fifth in giant slalom. After the GS, Mancuso announced she would skip the final two events and head home to rest for the remainder of the season.

"At the end of the day we still have three guys that have been on the World Cup podium this season and we just didn't get it done here," men's head coach Phil McNichol said.

Snowboarding

Ryoh Aono took top honors and host Japan completed a sweep of the podium in a men's world cup halfpipe snowboard event at Furamo, Japan. Aono scored 45.4 points for his first halfpipe title of the season.

Speed Skating

Enrico Fabris of Italy edged Erben Wennemars of the Netherlands in the men's 1,500-meter speed skating event in Erfurt, Germany, setting up a showdown at the final World Cup event to decide the season title.

Luge

Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch of Germany clinched their fifth World Cup luge doubles title at the season-ending meet in Sigulda, Latvia.