Pyeongchang, South Korea  - Helena Jonsson on Sunday claimed the biathlon world championship gold in the women's pursuit after a near-flawless display on the shooting range in Pyeongchang.

The Swede stunned the favoured Germans in windy conditions missing just twice on the first shooting, but then hitting all the remaining targets, to move past Germany's Kati Wilhelm and win in a time of 34 minutes 12.3 seconds.

Wilhelm was 18.3 seconds behind.

The 2007 world champion Magdalena Neuner from Germany, who was lying first going into the final shooting section, crashed out of contention with four misses out of five and then took a tumble on the final lap to finish down into 11th place.

The bronze medal went to Russian Olga Zaitseva, who like Wilhelm, had six misses in the shooting range.

The best performance of the morning belonged to France's Marie Laure Brunet, who managed to hit each of her 20 targets and moved from 52nd at the start to seventh position.

A men's pursuit will be held later Sunday. dpa