“You always believed in me”
Lindsey Vonn mourns the loss of coaching legends
Updated on 08/22/2025 – 05:58 a.m.Reading time: 2 min.
He promoted the later superstar in very early years and significantly shaped her great career. Now Lindsey Vonn’s first coach has died. The 40-year-old dedicates him an emotional post.
Lindsey Vonn mourns with moving words about her long -time coach Erich Sailer. According to his daughter, the “ski pioneer”, Vonn’s first coach, died at the age of 99.
On Instagram, the 40-year-old remembered the man who had accompanied her on her way in ski racing since childhood. “Erich was more than my ski trainer. Erich was my family,” wrote Vonn. Without him, she would not be “the person and skiers that I am today”.
In his camp in Minnesota, she had learned skiing as a little girl. Sailer later shaped her entire career. “He did more for skiing than any other coach in America and maybe even worldwide. Even from the small but fine Buck Hill in Minnesota,” said Vonn. Even now, before her last season, he remains a central figure for her. “You always believed in me,” said Vonn about her upcoming last races.
The winner of 82 World Cup races is grateful to have seen him again this summer. This encounter gave her new support. “I am grateful to have felt this belief in me again,” she wrote. She will now take this with her – to the start, but also in her life after the career.
In the end, Vonn turned to her mentor with a last message in German: “I love you, Erich.”