Kildow injured in training for Sölden

A week ahead of the first World Cup race of the season, American all-rounder Lindsey Kildow is suffering from bone bruising and a tongue laceration after crashing on a U.S. team training course at Pitztal, Austria. The injuries could keep her off the start list for the women’s giant slalom at nearby Sölden, Oct. 28.

A WEEK AHEAD of the first World Cup race of the season, American all-rounder Lindsey Kildow is suffering from bone bruising and a tongue laceration after crashing on a U.S. team training course at Pitztal, Austria. The injuries could keep her off the start list for the women’s giant slalom at nearby Sölden, Oct. 28. [Related story: U.S. women ratchet up intensity for World Cup opener ]   
    “I have a medium-grade bone bruise on the tibia right at the joint,” said Kildow, who crashed on Tuesday, Oct. 17 and isn’t planning to ski again until Monday, Oct.. 23. “Right now I’m hoping to race, but we’ll see. Taking it day by day.”
    In a telephone interview, Kildow said an MRI analysis showed meniscus damage, but that physicians thought that was a remnant of an earlier injury. In the crash, she bit her tongue, and while the cuts did not require stitches, they had her mumbling and painful through her 22nd birthday, which was Wednesday.
    “It was on the second, really steep pitch and I hit a glacial ice patch and slid out, and when I hit the soft snow my ski caught and I hit my chin on my knee,” she said. “My skis were out in front of me and they kept catching on the snow. It wasn’t that spectacular, but my tongue was bleeding in a really nasty way and there was an impression from my tooth way in the back of my mouth.”
    Kildow was fifth overall in the World Cup standings last year, the top female American behind the champion Janica Kostelic. Kildow was second in the downhill standings, third in combined and fourth in super G.
    No stranger to injuries, Kildow has taken some memorable crashes in her young career, including one during a training run at the Olympic Winter Games last season in Torino that destroyed her chances of a medal there.
    Giant slalom has long been her weakest event, but she was improving this summer and was looking forward to Sölden prior to Tuesday’s misfortune. “Since then it has just been therapy and icing,” she said.
    As a bit of consolation, Kildow will be reunited in a few days with Olympe, the cow that was her prize for winning the Val d'Isere downhill last season. A considerable amount of paperwork was required beforehand, but on Sunday Olympe is being driven from France to the U.S. women’s training base in Austria, where it will stay at the farm of a friend of the women’s team coach, Patrick Riml.
    Organizers are working furiously to prepare the Sölden course for the first race of the season. In a telephone interview, women’s World Cup race director Atle Skaardal said he expected good things.
    “Of course it’s a very difficult situation,” Skaardal said. “They got some snow in the beginning of October and they have been doing a really big job of pushing the snow from the sides into the race course, and blowing snow at night.”
    Skaardal said if anything he expected organizers to move the finish line up the hill, but couldn’t be sure that would be necessary until he makes his final inspection of the slope on Sunday.
    Racers from Burke Mountain Academy are training elsewhere in Austria, and invited Phil Mahre to their camp. A group from the New York Ski Education Foundation is training this week at Saas Fee, Switzerland, where there is good snow, according to the team’s new alpine chief, Thomas Erhard.