Erich Sailer, a Hall of Fame ski coach who transformed a modest Minnesota slope into a launchpad for young hopefuls — including the future champion Lindsey Vonn — putting them on career paths that led to the Olympics and the international World Cup circuit, died on Aug. 19 in Edina, Minn. He was 99.
His daughter, Martina Sailer, said he died in a hospital from complications resulting from recent falls.
Sailer was the head racing coach and director at Buck Hill, a sports resort about 20 miles south of Minneapolis. It ski slope is so unimposing that the reporter Bill Pennington, a longtime chronicler of Vonn for The New York Times, once wrote that “escalators at the nearby Mall of America probably have more vertical drop.