Ready to go

Lindsey Kildow is planning her wedding, to win the skiing overall World Cup and a skiing lesson with Roger Federer. How she’s preparing herself for all this, she discloses in part one of our comprehensive pre-season interview.

After the season was over, you and your fiancé Thomas Vonn were attacking a project that demands as many nerves and stamina as a Downhill in the World Cup: moving into your first own house. Have you reached the finish line in the meantime – seeing your wedding is coming up soon.

I’m pleased to say that Thomas and I have reached the ‘finish line’ of decorating our house. It’s finally fully furnished, and is the perfect place to come back to after along ski season. For me, the decorating was the hardest part of owning a new home for the simple reason that I’m just not good at decorating. I seem to lack the female gene that enables the majority of women to pick and choose colors and designs that will fill their home.

Ski racers are loners who have to be able to rely on themselves – and on top of that travel almost the whole year through. What sort of conflicts arise when two of the same ilk get together under one roof – since Thomas is a ski racer as well?

Thomas and I are a great team, and skiing is actually the one thing that we hardly ever have conflicts over. He understands the stresses and sacrifices of skiing and he’s the one who can get me through the day when I’m feeling down.

At the moment you’re intensively preparing for the next season. How can we imagine a typical Lindsey Kildow training day at this stage of the year?

Right now I’m in Chile at a ski camp. A typical day is as follows: We wake up at 6:15 a.m. and have breakfast, after which Martin Hager, my Red Bull physical trainer, takes measurements to make sure I’m ready for another day of intense training. Then we ski Downhill or Super-G from 7:30-11:30. This is followed by a 15 minute break, then we head to the slopes again for Slalom or Giant Slalom training. At 1 p.m. we break for lunch and after that, I take an afternoon nap. At 3 p.m. I meet Martin at the gym, work out for about two hours, and then watch my skiing video with the US coaches. Dinner is at 7:30 and bed time is 9 o’ clock. I sleep as fast as I can and wake up happy because there’s another day of skiing!

Regarding the desire to win and ambition, you let yourself, as they say, be inspired by another athlete who doesn’t have anything to do with skiing: Roger Federer. “He kicks ass,” you say on your myspace page about him. What do you admire about Federer – and which of you would do better if you swapped sports?

He’s just amazing! Such a hard worker, he trains himself, he’s so mentally strong, and he simply dominates his sport. I’ve no doubt that if we swapped sports he would be amazing at skiing too because of his raw athleticism.

I’ve got to add, though, that one of my biggest dreams is to meet Roger. I would have gone to the US Open if I hadn’t been skiing in Chile at the time, so maybe I’ll get a chance to meet him somewhere else. I’d give him a skiing lesson if he wanted one …