Life begins at age 40! I heard someone say. Well, for Lindsey Vonn life restarted at age 41! She returned to the FIS World Cup circuit this season with a bang. She has been in podium contention in every race and silenced the doubters who questioned her return.
Lindsey Vonn got her start at a small ski area in Minnesota. Buck Hill may only have 310 feet of vertical, but it did have one of the most successful ski racing coaches of all time, Erich Sailer. Sailer was Vonn’s primary coach when she was a young girl. Lyndall Heyer had the answer to last week’s trivia question naming Erich Sailer.
Erich Sailer was born on November 7, 1925 near Innsbruck, Austria. Erich was not related to Toni Sailer who would win three gold medals at the 1956 Olympics, but Erich was a competitive ski racer for Austria. His career highlight was finishing third at the Hahnenkamm downhill in 1950.
In 1954 Erich emigrated to Vancouver, Canada to coach skiing at the University of British Columbia. He would come to the United States in 1956 to set up a summer ski camp at the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. He used his Austrian connections to bring in some of the top ski racers of the day as coaches including names such as Anderl Molterer and Karl Schranz.
One young American skier that became a regular at Sailer’s summer ski camps was Alan Kildow. Kildow was 10 years old with no ski racing experience when he first attended the Mt Hood camp in 1963. With Erich as his coach Kildow would eventually win a Junior National Championship. An injury would end Kildow’s racing career, but he would become one of Erich’s coaches.
In 1969 Erich Sailer moved to Minnesota to head the ski school at Buck Hill. Its proximity to a growing population center provided many more students for Erich to coach. Erich used the rope tow on the small hill to advantage. Repetition is a key to learning to ski and even more so to learn to race. Rope tow laps could be done in under 2 minutes so repetition was easy to achieve. Within a year of his arrival, four Buck Hill racers qualified for Junior Nationals. It wouldn’t be long before Erich-Sailer-coached skiers from the Midwest were on the U.S. Ski Team.
Alan Kildow would start a family and when his daughter Lindsey was 6, he brought her to Buck Hill to be coached by Erich Sailer. Lindsey was an apt student who would run gates tirelessly. It is reported that she would run 400 gates on school days and 1000 on weekend days! And now at age 41 she’s still winning races.
Of course Erich Sailer coached many other racers. The list includes notable names such as Andy Mill, Julia Mancuso, Sarah Schleper, Kristina Koznick , and Paula Moltzan. It is estimated that during his life Sailer coached approximately 25,000 skiers!
So what made Erich Sailer such a great coach? He had the ability to treat each athlete individually. He would tailor his coaching to their personalities and abilities, recognizing that one approach doesn’t fit all. He could be tough or gentle, but always honest. This combination earned him the title of “Yoda of Ski Coaching.”
Erich Sailer passed away on August 19, 2025 at age 99. In an Instagram post following his death, Lindsey Vonn said:
“Erich was more than my ski coach. More than my father’s ski coach. Erich was my family… There is no doubt that I would not be the person or skier I am today without him.”
In a similar post Paula Moltzan added:
“Erich was more than just a coach – he was a mentor who ignited my passion for ski racing and believed in me every step of the way.”
Here’s wishing all my readers the happiest of Holidays! And I hope your 2026 is filled with powder days!
Leave a Reply