Poland's Justyna Kowalczyk won the first gold medal of the 23rd World Winter Universiade on Friday as she triumphed at the women's 5km individual cross-country skiing classic technique.

Her compatriot Katarzyna Wojcicka took the women's 1,500m speedskating hours later.

Kowalczyk, bronze medalist of the 30km competition at Turin Olympics, started from the last position to finish first in 14 minutes and 33 seconds.

Slovakian Alena Prochazkova was second with 1:01.50 minutes behind while Irina Nafranovich of Belarus on third by 15:54.10 at Pragelato Plan.

Katarzyna's winning time was 2:00:69, while Lee Ju-Youn of South Korea finished second on 2:00:78. The third went to Dutch Kleinsman Moniek on 2:02:32.

Aronne Pieruz won the first gold medal for host Italy on the men's Alpine skiing.

The 23-year-old led after the first round with a time of 50.39 seconds and nailed down the victory by a total of 1:48:64, nearly 0.90 seconds ahead of the second-placed Filip Trejbal of the Czech Republic.

Adam Cole of the United States placed third by 1:49:91.

Austrian Daniela Iraschko was the undisputable winner of the women's ski jump was as she scored 105.5 points for the victory.

Misaki Shigeno of Japan was far behind on the second with 59.0 points while another Japanese Erina Kabe on third with 53.5 points.

Chinese Zhang Dan/Zhang Hao was on the way for the gold medal of the figure skating pairs event as the Olympic silver medalists led the short program by 65.42 points, almost 11 points adrift of Tatiana Volosozhar/Stanislav Morozov of Ukraine on second.

(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2007)