November 27, 2006 in Sports

Kildow not merely a downhill skier

• Print
• Email
• Share

ASPEN, Colo. – Lindsey Kildow yearns for a legacy more versatile than the downhill thrills and spills that have marked her career.

The 22-year-old two-time Olympian from Vail, who’s proven her mettle in the speed events, continued her steady – and stealthy – ascent in World Cup slalom with a respectable 16th-place finish Sunday at the Aspen Winternationals, the only U.S. stop on the women’s circuit.

“I’d really like to get a podium this year in tech, hopefully in slalom,” said Kildow, winner of two downhills last season. “I was really close last year. I was fourth in Levi (Finland), and I’m there, I’m just maybe not showing it today. So, that’s really my goal this season.”

It’s no pie-in-the-sky hope, either.

“She could for sure do it,” teammate Resi Stiegler said. “She’s a real strong skier in general and I think she just needs to take that confidence she has in downhill and super-G and put it in slalom.”

Though few realize it, Kildow is ranked 12th in the slalom World Cup start list – rankings which reflect skiers’ performances over the last 365 days.

Nailing the tech events will further her ultimate career goal: the overall World Cup title.

“I think that she’s been a four-event skier,” Stiegler said. “She’s been better at tech, I think, than every other girl on our team. And she’s always been strong in slalom and GS.”

Kildow, who didn’t finish her first run on the giant slalom Saturday, expected a slow start this season after missing three weeks last month with a bruised left knee sustained in a spill while training on a glacier in Austria.

Her knee injury affects her on the tight, twisty slalom courses but not so much on the straightaway events.

“I had really great speed training in Chile,” she said, referring to the team’s offseason workouts in the Southern Hemisphere. “I feel really confident and it’s just typical in tech when you don’t really have the timing, you don’t really have the rhythm, you haven’t got the training in.

“I think day by day it’s going to get better.”

Kildow regrets going to Levi for the first World Cup race earlier this month, where she failed to finish the second slalom run. She thinks it might have been better to stay back in the Aspen Mountains and train on her home snow.

“But the second round was good,” she said. “I’m psyched about it. It may not have been really fast, but (it was) solid skiing.”

Kildow said an MRI last week revealed her bruised tibia hasn’t healed. The prescription is rest and anti-inflammatory medication. She’ll get another MRI in a month.

“It was a pretty hard fall,” she said, “But it wasn’t extreme like the Olympics.”

Her frightening free-fall in practice at the Turin Games sent her to a hospital overnight. Despite persistent back pain, she drew admirers the world over by competing in the downhill just 48 hours later.

This last wipeout “was just a regular old crash,” Kildow said. “And sometimes those little things will really do it to you.”

No comments on this story so far. Add yours!