Ski Club Vail’s Lindsey Kildow, a four-event racer on the U.S. Ski Team, reports regularly from the World Cup tour in collaboration with Denver Post ski writer John Meyer.
Are, Sweden – After winning silver medals in super-G and downhill at the world championships this past week, I’m a little ambivalent.
Before these championships I didn’t have any medals in major events (worlds or the Olympics), so I’m happy to have what I have, but you always want to win.
I’m really happy. I know if I hadn’t made a crucial mistake on the upper section of Sunday’s downhill, I probably would have won. Mentally I was there, I was skiing well, so that’s positive.
On the top section, there’s a sidehill traverse that was pretty bumpy. I think I went into it a little too straight. I came through the double – it’s like two gates with one turn, which some people call a “banana” or a delay – and didn’t have the right direction coming into the next gate.
That gate was like a drop-off, like a schuss, and I went off the wrong side of the schuss. I caught air, tried to get back, caught an edge and almost did the splits. It was like a replay of my crash at the Olympics last year. It was like a chain reaction of problems.
But I managed to stay on the course, and once I realized I was still able to finish the race, I just tried to ski my best without taking crazy chances and wound up making up a lot of time.
But it was a good day. It’s not easy to make a mistake like that and still get on the podium.
I had a chance in the super-combined, too, after finishing second in the downhill segment, but I didn’t finish the slalom. I felt like after getting a silver medal in the super-G, I had a medal so I really wanted to try to win. I took a lot of risks in the slalom, pushed myself really hard, made a mistake, got twisted in a flush and didn’t quite make it through the finish.
Anja Paerson, the superstar from Sweden, has won all three women’s races here despite not having won a race all season on the World Cup. I think the big difference for her is mental. She is just so strong, just has such a strong will. She can win whenever she wants.
She has won the World Cup overall, she has won discipline titles, she has won Olympic medals, so maybe she’s not as motivated on the World Cup. I think the one thing she really wanted this year was to win world championships medals in her home country. It means a lot to her and it’s really cool to see. Everyone here is so excited about it.
