I don’t know the stats, but I’d always imagined that the average age on NS was around 21. obviously a lot younger and as NS gets older, so do the OG members. Kelly Sildaru is 21. To me, she seems to have been around forever. Since she burst on the scene with a Slopestyle Gold at Dew Tour 2015 and bagged one at X Games the following year, she’s never been too far from podiums. Kelly has a bunch of medals: nine X Games, five Dew Tour, a World Championships, an X Games Europe, a bunch of juniors and an Olympic Slopestyle Bronze. She wasn’t even old enough to drink the Champagne at events in the US! She’s currently back home in Estonia, recovering from an ACL injury, but a relaxed and happy Kelly took a few minutes to talk about the past, present and future.
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Hi Kelly. It seems like you’ve been around forever but you’re only 21. You won Slopestyle gold at X Games 2016 and added more X Games, World Champs and even Olympic medals to that. You’re still super young, do the rookies reach out to you for advice?
I don’t think so. Maybe sometimes, but it doesn’t happen very often. I feel like most of the athletes, or upcoming skiers, have their teams and coaches who probably give them advice. Some up-and-coming skiers in Estonia, will ask for my advice, but that’s mainly people that I know or are pretty much my friends.
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What’s the skiing like in Estonia? Are there good mountains there?
No, not really! Haha!
Our highest peak is like 320m above sea-level, it’s really tiny, but we still have some small ski resorts with a few small jumps and rails. Which is cool, but you can’t really train here that much. It’s more shredding with friends and having fun.
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Are you based in Talin [capital of Estonia]?
Yes. I grew up here and have been here my whole life so I’ve always travelled to ski. People ask me why I haven’t moved to Switzerland or Austria, where they have big parks and mountains. For me, because I’m competing so much, I would need to travel anyway, so it wouldn’t matter to me if I travelled from Switzerland or from Estonia. It’s still all pretty close anyway and I really love Estonia. All my family and friends are here, so I just like it here!
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Do you still train on the mountains in Estonia then or do you not have much time with the comp schedule?
I guess it depends. Probably this season, when I’m still in my recovery and not back to ‘professional skiing’ yet, I’ll probably go and ski in Estonia. Usually our winters are pretty short here. It depends how much snow we get, but the ski resorts are usually open from about December to March. Usually during that time I’m abroad. I don’t get that much time to ski here. If I do, I usually just go have fun with my friends and chill.
To this day, Kelly is the queen of rails, and has been for more than a decade
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Are your friends good skiers too?
Haha it depends! I have different kinds of friends. Some of them are pretty good, but we don’t have any professional skiers or other athletes here in Estonia. There are a few who are really trying, one of my friends is 19 and last season she was living in Switzerland and training there. She had an ACL injury too; I think two years ago. She was back for a year and then got injured again. She’s really trying and training a lot. There’s a guy who’s pretty good as well, he went to a Youth Olympic Festival in Italy this year. He made the podium in slopestyle. He’s also trying to ski as much as possible! Some of my friends are better and some not so much but, it’s always fun to shred together.
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Everyone knows you won your first X Games at just 13, how has life as a pro-skier changed over the years?
I think it’s changed a lot for me. I mean, looking back when I won my first X Games, I was still a child.
I don’t even know what I was thinking when i was skiing and freestyle skiing is actually kind of dangerous! Back then I didn’t really understand that. It was more: ‘I’m going on the mountain, jumping and having so much fun.’
Now, when I’m older, I also see the risks and that’s not always a good thing. Back then I didn’t see myself as a professional skier, it was just something I did when I was growing up. Probably the same as just going to school is for most people. Just a lifestyle.
Every year that I got older and I understood the risks more. I learned so much more about my body and how it works. I guess it’s the same for everyone, people grow over time and they start to understand more and I guess that happened for me in skiing. I just grew up a little bit and started doing it a bit more ‘professionally’.
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Now it’s more a job, is it less fun for you?
I wouldn’t say it’s less fun. Back then it wasn’t a career, it was just a lifestyle that I was used to. There are of course different sides to it now than there were before.
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You’ve just switched from Faction to Völkl. Which of their skis will you ride and how do you see your skiing developing?
I don’t actually know which skis I’ll use. I haven’t tried Völkl skis yet, because I’m still recovering. I’m really excited to get on them when I’m back on snow. Völkl are a really nice brand and they’ve supported some very successful athletes over the years. I’m really excited to join the team and try out the skis. To see what the future holds for me and Völkl!
Of course, I’m really thankful to Faction. I had a really good time with them, and they supported me for a really long time. Sometimes it’s just good to change things up and move on. I’m really excited.
Kelly visiting the Völkl factory in her downtime before she's back on snow
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You’re also recovering from an ACL tear, how’s that going? Was it the same knee as 2018?
I’m still recovering. Originally the plan was to get back on skis in October/November. Since I’ve had many setbacks during my recovery, now I probably won’t be back on skis until December. It’s the right one this time, before it was my left. This injury has been pretty frustrating for me. I didn’t remember all this recovery was so hard the last time. Maybe it’s also getting harder because last time I was 15/16. Of course, our body changes and it doesn’t heal so quickly.
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Kelly, you’re still only 21!
Haha I know. I don’t even want to imagine what it’ll be like when I’m like 40! This time the injury was also a little more serious. I injured both of my meniscus. After the surgery I had to wear a knee brace for around seven weeks and the first four or five weeks my knee had to be straight all the time, so I couldn’t really move it. When I was ALLOWED to bend it, I still couldn’t really bend it. It took a while to get back into flexion and everything. I’m still kind of struggling with this at the moment.
This summer I just had some weird pain in my knee and I didn’t know where it came from. It didn’t want to go away, even if I took a break from workouts. It’s just been so frustrating. I remember with my left knee, I was walking two weeks after my surgery, there was no pain. This one I started walking normally after three months!
It was just something I didn’t really expect, after the experience of my left knee. I guess it is what it is and now it’s finally getting better. I don’t have this pain anymore and I’m finally getting stronger.
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How did you injure it?
At X Games. I just did a cork 7, for the first time on that jump. I just had a little bit too much speed and I over-rotated and landed backseat a little bit. It’s strange because when I watch the video, it seems like I’d already landed and then I crashed because my knee gave in. It’s really strange.
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Obviously, the injury may have messed it up, but were you able to make any plans for winter ‘23/’24? Which comps and do you have any filming plans?
It’s really difficult right now, I guess it all comes down to how I feel the first time I get back on skis. How I feel, how my knee feels and then I can go from there. I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to go back to competing before one year from my surgery. That will be beginning of February.
When I go back, I just want to be sure that I’m 110% recovered. Strong physically and also mentally. Since there’s no really important World Champs or Olympics this season anyway, I just want to take my time to fully recover. But I’ll see!
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So, definitely no X Games?
No. No X Games. I actually got the invite a few days ago, but unfortunately, I think I’ll have to miss it this year.
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If you’re not competing so much, does that maybe leave some space for filming?
I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.
First, I just want to recover fully and then we’ll see what I can do and when I’m ready to hit big jumps, doing tricks and stuff like that. It’s really uncertain at the moment.
Maybe I just want to train, maybe I want to film, we’ll see.
I haven’t made any plans, so I’ll just take it day by day.
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More long-term, do have any plans to film?
I don’t know. I definitely love filming and I’d love to at some point, but recently I’ve been more interested in backcountry skiing. I haven’t done it a lot, just a bit when I was younger. Now, when I’m competing so much, I haven’t really had time to go powder skiing and stuff. It’s definitely something that I want to get back into. Even if it’s just for fun, but we’ll see.
https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/1080197/Kelly-SILDARU---PVS-Company
Remember this, cork 7 in the backcountry as a tot. Kelly, we want to see you back on the film grind!
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I guess there’s not much backcountry in Estonia?
Oh no, no, no! I’ve skied some powder in Estonia, but it’s not like Japan or Austria. They get a few inches some nights and it’s something, but it’s not the same.
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Ok, where’s the best place you’ve skied backcountry?
Probably Japan. We were there four or five years ago and it was their worst winter in 100 years. We still had some powder, but it wasn’t how it usually is. It was still the best powder I’ve ever skied, so that was cool.
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You got an Olympic slopestyle bronze in 2022, will you be having another go in Cortina ’26?
That’s the plan right now, yes. I don’t know what events, but I definitely want to go to the next Olympics, I’ll probably do halfpipe, slopestyle and big air. I don’t know, we’ll see, I just think some things in the future are pretty uncertain at the moment. I know that I want to go to the Olympics, but how and what events I don’t know right now.
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A few years ago, a major situation developed between you and your father. How are you and how are things now?
Still not good. I don’t talk with my dad at all. I guess there’s not much to say. Things are still complicated and there’s still some stuff going on between me and my dad. We’ve just had some lawsuits and court cases. It’s not a nice situation to be in and I’m really sad that I don’t talk to my brother anymore. I think that’s the saddest part about this whole thing.
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Do you think that situation affected your passion for skiing?
Definitely, especially when I quit training with my dad. That was a really low point in my life. At one point I didn’t even think that I was going to continue with professional skiing. At that point, skiing was disgusting for me. It brought back all these memories of how my dad used to talk to me on the hills, or what he did and how he behaved with me. I slowly started coming out of it, I started training with my boyfriend, which gave me a new spark and a new perspective of skiing.
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I’m not much of a fashion person, but I’ve seen you on various catwalks on Instagram. Is fashion something you like away from skiing and is it something you’d like to get more involved in?
Yeah, I’ve been a fan of fashion for a long time. Since I was a kid I was dreaming of doing catwalks and stuff. I wasn’t really serious about it, but now I feel like I want to be more involved in fashion. A few weeks ago I did my first Italian Fashion week, I did a couple of shows there. It was really cool and I really liked it. Not just being a model, but fashion is something that really interests me. I like dressing up and seeing all the collections, clothing and stuff like that.
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So, would you be more interested in modeling than designing?
Right now, I might even be thinking about designing something, but I feel like I’m not really a creative person, Maybe designing wouldn’t be the best choice for me, but I’ll see. For now, my focus is still on skiing and I think modeling/fashion is more on the side.
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