Kildow’s Rise Is Tied to Her Rapid Descent

Respect sometimes takes strange forms. For skier Lindsey Kildow, it was getting “the hairy eye” from Renate Goetschl and grudging praise from Michaela Dorfmeister after she won a World Cup downhill and finished third behind the two Austrians in a super-G race at Lake Louise, Canada, in December.

“They were like, ‘Who is this girl and is she for real?’ ” Kildow said. “Last year I got third at Cortina, but they didn’t think I was a threat. They knew I was coming but they didn’t know I was coming so fast.”

Speed is Kildow’s calling card. She’s second in the World Cup super-G standings and third in downhill, marking her as a medal contender at the Alpine World Championships, Jan. 29-Feb. 13 in Bormio and Santa Caterina, Italy.

Kildow, who turned 20 in October, is enjoying a breakthrough season. She has finished in the top three in three downhill races and three super-G races, leading a charge by U.S. women in speed events. They’ve recorded top-20 finishes in 10 of 11 World Cup speed races (super-G and downhill) and are turning heads in ski-mad Europe.

Kildow said she knew the U.S. women were being taken seriously when she read an Austrian newspaper article lauding the U.S. team “and how we’ve kind of taken over everything,” she said during a conference call from Austria on Tuesday. “That was kind of a special moment.”

There might be more such moments to come for Kildow, who grew up in St. Paul, Minn., but moved to Vail, Colo., to further her career.

She began to assert herself last season, when she won U.S. titles in the super-G and slalom, junior world championship medals in giant slalom and downhill, and her first World Cup medal, a bronze in the downhill at Cortina, Italy. She credited her experience in technical races -- the slalom and giant slalom -- for her recent results.

“I definitely think you have to have a technical background to be successful in speed races,” she said. “You have to make dynamic turns that are clean and precise, and I get that from doing slalom all those years.

“Right now my focus is on super-G and downhill but I want to make the transition and be more of a four-event skier. ...

“Bode [Miller] set the standard for all athletes in proving you can win all four events. Someday I hope to be close to that.”

Kildow’s father, a former U.S. junior champion, put her on skis when she was 2. Her talent inspired the family to move to Vail when she was in her early teens, but her parents later moved back to the Twin Cities and divorced.

“For a while I didn’t realize what kind of sacrifice they were making for me and I probably wasn’t as nice to my parents as I should have been,” she said. “After I’d traveled around and matured I realized it was a big move. My brothers and sister left all their friends for me.

“I don’t remember exactly when, but it hit me hard. It put everything in perspective and humbled me. I didn’t thank them enough and didn’t know how they were stressed financially and stressed in their relationship.”

Kildow visits them -- and her grandparents in Wisconsin -- when she can. However, she spent last summer training in Chile with the U.S. speed team, another factor in her breakthrough.

“When the season started I was confident with speed,” she said. “Going to Lake Louise, the ball was already rolling. ... I was training so well this summer and skiing fast, I knew the season was going to be good, but I didn’t know the season was going to go so well and that I was going to have so many top-five results.”

Her life has changed, though she’s hardly a household name in the U.S. She was recognized and waved across European borders after she misplaced her passport recently, and, most touching, was hailed by lift attendants at the U.S. team’s Austrian training base. “These people, their lives are ski racing, and for me to be someone they’re cheering for is really cool,” she said.

She hasn’t let the attention distract her or inflate her ego. Thanks to advice from Picabo Street, who helped her identify her goals and cope with day-to-day pressures, and Hilary Lindh, who gave her “more hands-on stuff,” Kildow feels prepared for short- and long-term challenges.

“Each day I have the thought that the World Championships are coming and I have a countdown in my conditioning plan,” she said. “I’m trying to take in what’s to come and look at it as a good opportunity for me.”

Go Figure

Little about figure skater Jenny Kirk’s season has gone as planned, but she will get an unexpected shot at redemption in March.

Kirk, who left Michigan in June to train in El Segundo with coaches Frank Carroll and Ken Congemi, fell twice in her long program and finished fourth at last week’s U.S. championships in Portland, Ore. Normally, that would have kept her off the team for the World Championships in Moscow, but third-place finisher Kimmie Meissner is 15 and too young to compete, according to International Skating Union rules.

That means Kirk will go to the World Championships -- and, she hopes, the Four Continents competition next month in Seoul, Korea. And she’ll go with a vengeance.

“At first, I was really upset, and I cried, because I’d been skating well in practice,” she said of her performance at Portland. “Obviously, I’m thrilled to get to go to Worlds and Four Continents. Like my coach, Ken, said, it’s a building process and I have to use this as fuel to make me mad and inspire me.”

Kirk had difficulty living on her own in California and finally asked her father to handle her business matters so she could focus on skating. Carroll and Congemi have told her “to see every competition as a steppingstone and I don’t have to be perfect,” lessons she’s slowly absorbing.

She also said she welcomes the challenge posed by Meissner’s history-making triple axel last week.

“It’s great. I think this sport needs it,” Kirk said. “A couple of years ago, everyone was pushing for triple-triples. We need that kind of energy and enthusiasm in our sport to push us.”