Ester_Ledecká

Ester Ledecká

Ester Ledecká

Czech snowboarder and skier (born 1995)

Ester Ledecká (Czech pronunciation: [ˈɛstɛr ˈlɛdɛtskaː], born 23 March 1995) is a Czech snowboarder and alpine skier. At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Ledecká won gold medals in the super-G in alpine skiing and in the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding, becoming the first person to not only compete in the Winter Olympics using two different types of equipment (skis and snowboard) but to go further and win two gold medals and do so at the same Winter Olympics. She was the second woman to win an Olympic gold in two separate disciplines but the first to do so at the same Winter Olympics. She was the first Czech to win the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding at the FIS Snowboard World Cup.

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Ledecká with Martina Sáblíková (left) at Old Town Square in Prague after returning from the 2018 Winter Olympics

Early life

Ester Ledecká was born in Prague, to mother Zuzana, a figure skater,[2] and father Janek Ledecký, a well-known musician in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.[3][4] She comes from a sporting family: her maternal grandfather is a former ice hockey player Jan Klapáč, who was a seven-time World Championship and two-time Olympic medallist.[4] In 2014, she was still at high school, attending a distance-learning programme in Prague.[5]

Ice hockey was the first sport she took up as a child, before taking up skiing at the age of four and later adding snowboarding.[2] "I was following what my brother did," Ledecká says.[6] "He is one and a half years older than me, and so when he started with a board, I wanted to do it too. I was five years old when I started snowboarding, and I did freestyle snowboarding and boardercross until I was about thirteen years old. And again, it was my brother who started with alpine snowboarding, and I wanted to beat him, so I learned that too."

Her hobbies include playing the guitar and singing.[7] She also enjoys participating in summer sports such as beach volleyball and windsurfing.[2]

Career

Ledecká competed in her first World Cup tournament in the 2012–13 competition, finishing in 13th place in the parallel giant slalom event.[3] In March 2013, at the age of 17, she won gold in the parallel slalom event at the Junior World Championships, her second gold of the competition.[8] She was named "Junior Sportsperson of the year" at the Czech Republic's 2013 Sportsperson of the Year awards.[9]

During the 2013–14 FIS Snowboard World Cup, Ledecká placed second behind Patrizia Kummer in the first parallel slalom event in Bad Gastein and third in the second event. She subsequently won gold at Rogla in the parallel giant slalom event at the same competition, becoming the first Czech to do so.[10] In doing so, she also became just the third Czech to win any World Cup snowboarding event.[11]

Ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics, The Daily Telegraph's Andrew Lawton mentioned Ledecká as the "one to watch" in the women's snowboarding competition.[10] She was among the Czech athletes most expected to win a medal at the games, along with Martina Sáblíková, Gabriela Soukalová and fellow snowboarder Eva Samková.[12] After she had finished ninth in qualifying for the alpine skiing event at the Winter Olympics, the Czech Ski Association attempted to register her as a competitor. However, the FIS rejected the proposal, reiterating that only eight Czechs could compete.[7][13]

Ledecká made her Olympic debut at the 2014 Winter Olympics on 19 February 2014 in the parallel giant slalom snowboarding event. She reached the quarter-final stage before being eliminated by Patrizia Kummer, who went on to win the gold medal in the event. Ledecká was classified as seventh overall.[14]

Ledecká has combined her snowboarding career with competing in alpine skiing: she made her debut on the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in February 2016, finishing 24th in her first race, the Kandahar downhill in Garmisch.[15] She went on to score points in four of her first five World Cup races, competing in the downhill and Super-G disciplines.[2] In 2017 she became the first sportsperson to compete in World Championships in both skiing and snowboarding, taking a gold in the parallel giant slalom and a silver in the parallel slalom at the Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships in Sierra Nevada, Spain, and scoring top 30 finishes in the downhill, super-G and alpine combined at the Alpine Skiing World Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland.[1]

Ledecká made her Olympic debut in alpine skiing at the 2018 Winter Olympics while also being qualified for alpine snowboarding. She won the gold medal in super-G in alpine skiing at the 2018 Winter Olympics in a historic upset. She was visibly shocked after finishing 0.01 seconds ahead of the 2014 Olympics defending gold medalist Anna Veith, who had already been proclaimed the winner by many media outlets.[16][17] Ledecká was ranked 49th in the event before the Olympics and had never medalled in any World Cup level international skiing event.[18] To make the feat even more surprising to reporters, she was rumored to be allegedly racing on skis borrowed from Mikaela Shiffrin (both racers are sponsored by Atomic). She refused to remove her goggles for the post-victory press conference, insisting that this is her trademark (which is true), and when pressed by reporters, she cleverly stated that she had skipped wearing makeup as she had not expected to win the event.[19] Her snowboard coach, American Justin Reiter, arrived at the start of the Ladies PGS event with his reversible Czech team jacket confidently already turned gold side out. After victory in the parallel giant slalom she became the first ever female athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in two different disciplines during the same Winter Olympics[20] (Anfisa Reztsova had previously won gold in different disciplines but not at the same Olympics: cross country skiing in 1988 and biathlon in 1992 and 1994).[21] Ledecká was chosen as the flag bearer for the Czech Republic at the closing ceremony.[22]

In the 2018–19 Alpine Ski World Cup, Ledecká finished 24th in the downhill standings and 28th in super-G. In December 2019, Ledecká scored her first win on the Alpine Ski World Cup in downhill at Lake Louise, eclipsing her previous personal best World Cup downhill result of seventh at the same venue two years previously.[23] In December 2020, she won her first World Cup Super-G race.[24]

Ledecká continued to split her time between snowboarding and Alpine skiing, finishing second in World Cup Alpine skiing in the downhill for the 2020 season and third for the 2022 season, as well as third in the combined in 2020, the last season it has been contested due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2022 Winter Olympics, Ledecká repeated as the snowboarding gold medalist in parallel giant slalom, while in Alpine skiing she finished fifth in super-G and fourth in combined. However, she was injured while training during the summer of 2022 and targeted a possible return during February 2023.[25] Ultimately, she was unable to return for the Alpine skiing world championships in February[26] but made it back for the final snowboarding races in March at Berchtesgaden, where she won the women's parallel slalom for her only win of the season.[27]

World Cup results

All results are sourced from the International Ski Federation (FIS).[28]

Snowboarding

Season titles

  • 7 titles – (4 parallel overall, 3 parallel giant slalom)
More information Season, Discipline ...

Season standings

More information Season, Age ...

Race podiums

  • 24 wins – (18 PGS, 6 PSL)
  • 38 podiums – (27 PGS, 11 PSL)
More information Season, Date ...

Alpine skiing

Season standings

More information Season, Age ...

Race podiums

More information Season, Date ...

Olympic results

  • 3 medals – (3 golds)

Snowboarding

  • 2 medals – (2 golds)
More information Year, Age ...

Alpine skiing

  • 1 medal – (1 gold)
More information Year, Age ...

World Championships results

Snowboarding

  • 3 medals – (2 gold, 1 silver)
More information Year, Age ...

Alpine skiing

More information Year, Age ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    Clarey, Christopher (27 November 2017). "Skiing or Snowboarding? Ester Ledecka Chose Both". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
  2. [2]
    Dampf, Andrew (22 February 2016). "Czech athlete transitions from snowboard to ski at World Cup". CTV News. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  3. [3]
    "Dcera Janka Ledeckého debutovala ve Světovém poháru ve snowboardingu 13. místem". Hospodářské noviny (in Czech). 21 December 2012. Archived from the original on 25 February 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  4. [4]
    Grim, Filip (3 February 2014). "Od sněhuláků přes zapomenuté lyže. Jak Ledecká startovala kariéru". Mladá fronta DNES (in Czech). Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  5. [5]
    Jakoubek, Jiří (18 January 2014). "Za odměnu mám vafle, smála se po prvním triumfu v SP Ledecká". Mladá fronta DNES (in Czech). Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  6. [6]
    "Ester Ledecká: how did she DO that?!". Retrieved 14 July 2020.
  7. [7]
    David, Jan (7 February 2014). "Na noc si dávám zmrzlinu, ale vždycky! směje se Ledecká". Metro Praha (in Czech). Prague: MAFRA. p. 16.
  8. [8]
    "Ledecka and Baumeister win parallel slalom at Junior World Champs". FIS. 7 March 2013. Archived from the original on 11 February 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  9. [9]
    Beránek, Jaroslav; Kučerová, Martina (18 December 2013). "Neporazitelná běžkyně Hejnová vyhrála i souboj o titul Sportovec roku". Mladá fronta DNES (in Czech). Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  10. [10]
    Lawton, Andrew (5 February 2014). "Winter Olympics 2014: Blagger's guide to snowboarding". The Telegraph. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  11. [11]
    "Career's first for Ledecka and Mathies in Rogla PGS | First Czech win on Alpine Snowboard World Cup tour | Exciting race for Crystal Globes". rogla.eu. Archived from the original on 7 February 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  12. [12]
    "Czech Republic names 85 athletes to Sochi Olympic team". AP. Sports Illustrated. 16 January 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  13. [13]
    Augustin, Marek (1 February 2014). "Ledecká bude v Soči závodit jen na snowboardu, start v lyžování neprošel". Czech Radio (in Czech). Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  14. [14]
    Grim, Filip (19 February 2014). "Desítka, jak jsem plánovala, chválila se Ledecká po olympijském debutu". Mladá fronta DNES (in Czech). Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  15. [15]
    "Ester Ledecka surprises ski world". International Ski Federation. 9 February 2016. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  16. [16]
    Olympics Prime Time. National Broadcasting Company (USA). 16 February 2018. NBC.
  17. [17]
    Olympics Prime Time. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 16 February 2018. CBC.
  18. [18]
    Chappell, Bill (17 February 2018). "'This Must Be Some Mistake,' Says Snowboarder After Winning Olympic Gold In Skiing". NPR.org. NPR. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
  19. [19]
    Sugar, Jenny (18 February 2018). "Ester Ledecka Won Gold in the Super-G — and She Was Wearing Mikaela Shiffrin's Skis!". PopSugar.
  20. [20]
    "Ester Ledecka: Two sports, two golds, same Olympics". BBC. 24 February 2018.
  21. [21]
    McGee, Paul (27 July 2019). "Ester Ledecká interview". icetrail.com. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
  22. [22]
    "Olympiáda skončila, za účasti Ivanky Trumpové i generála, který nechal potopit jihokorejskou loď". lidovky.cz (in Czech). 25 February 2018. Retrieved 7 March 2018.
  23. [23]
    Hodgetts, Rob (7 December 2019). "Dual Olympic champion Ester Ledecka wins first World Cup skiing race". cnn.com. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  24. [24]
    "Ester Ledecka adds World Cup super-G win to surprise Olympic title". OlympicTalk | NBC Sports. Associated Press. 20 December 2020. Retrieved 31 December 2020.
  25. [25]
    "Ester Ledecka postpones start of the season until 2023". fis-ski.com. 28 November 2022. Retrieved 17 January 2023.
  26. [26]
    OlympicTalk (23 January 2023). "Ester Ledecka to miss Alpine Skiing world championships". NBC Sports. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  27. [27]
    Sportsbeat (18 March 2023). "ESTER LEDECKA ROARS BACK TO PARALLEL SLALOM VICTORY IN BERCHTESGADEN, OBMANN LEADS AUSTRIAN ONE-TWO". Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  28. [28]
    "Ester Ledecka". FIS-Ski. International Ski Federation. Retrieved 15 January 2017.
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