Ester Ledecká

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 win two gold medals at the same Winter Olympics using two different types of equipment (skis and snowboard). She was the second woman to win 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.

Bc. Ester Ledecká

Ester Ledecká
Personal information
Born	(1995-03-23) 23 March 1995 Prague, Czech Republic
Residence	Prague, Czech Republic
Height	173 cm (5 ft 8 in)
Weight	68 kg (150 lb)
Sport
Country	Czech Republic
Sport	Snowboarding Alpine skiing
Event(s)	Parallel slalom, parallel giant slalom Downhill, super-G, combined
Club	Dukla Liberec
Coached by	Justin Reiter (snowboard) Tomáš Bank, Ondřej Bank (ski)[1]
Achievements and titles
World finals	Gold medal in parallel slalom at Kreischberg 2015 Gold medal in parallel giant slalom at Sierra Nevada 2017 Silver medal in parallel slalom at Sierra Nevada 2017
Olympic finals	Gold medal in Parallel giant slalom at Pyeongchang 2018 Gold medal in Super-G at Pyeongchang 2018
Highest world ranking	1st in Parallel World Cup (2016–2019) 1st in Parallel Giant Slalom World Cup (2016, 2018, 2019) • 2nd in Ski Downhill World Cup (2020) • 3rd in Alpine Combined World Cup (2020)
Medal record Representing  Czech Republic Women's snowboarding International snowboarding competitions Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 1 0 0 World Championships 2 1 0 Junior World Championships 2 0 0 Total 5 1 0 Olympic Games 2018 Pyeongchang Parallel giant slalom World Championships 2015 Kreischberg Parallel slalom 2017 Sierra Nevada Parallel giant slalom 2017 Sierra Nevada Parallel slalom Junior World Championships 2013 Erzurum Parallel slalom 2013 Erzurum Parallel giant slalom Women's alpine skiing International alpine skiing competitions Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 1 0 0 World Championships 0 0 0 Total 1 0 0 Olympic Games 2018 Pyeongchang Super-G

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 grandfather is 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," Ester 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 prior to 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 a downhill at Lake Louise, eclipsing her previous personal best World Cup downhill result of seventh at the same venue two years previously.[23]

World Cup results

All results are sourced from the International Ski Federation (FIS).[24]

Snowboarding

Season titles

• 7 titles – (4 parallel overall, 3 parallel giant slalom)

Season	Discipline
2016	Parallel overall
	Parallel giant slalom
2017	Parallel overall
2018	Parallel overall
	Parallel giant slalom
2019	Parallel overall
	Parallel giant slalom

Season standings

Season	Age	Parallel overall	Parallel slalom	Parallel giant slalom
2013	17	15	16	15
2014	18	2	2	3
2015	19	3	8	2
2016	20	1	5	1
2017	21	1	2	3
2018	22	1	24	1
2019	23	1	13	1
2020	24	17	8	17

Race podiums

• 17 wins – (15 PGS, 2 PSL)
• 28 podiums – (22 PGS, 6 PSL)

Season	Date	Location	Discipline	Place
2013–14	10 January 2014	Bad Gastein, Austria	Parallel slalom	2nd
	12 January 2014		Parallel slalom	3rd
	18 January 2014	Rogla, Slovenia	Parallel giant slalom	1st
2014–15	9 January 2015	Bad Gastein, Austria	Parallel slalom	1st
	7 February 2015	Sudelfeld, Germany	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	28 February 2015	Asahikawa, Japan	Parallel giant slalom	3rd
2015–16	12 December 2015	Carezza, Italy	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	23 January 2016	Rogla, Slovenia	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	30 January 2016	Moscow, Russia	Parallel slalom	3rd
	27 February 2016	Kayseri, Turkey	Parallel giant slalom	1st
2016–17	15 December 2016	Carezza, Italy	Parallel giant slalom	2nd
	17 December 2016	Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy	Parallel slalom	1st
	28 January 2017	Rogla, Slovenia	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	5 March 2017	Kayseri, Turkey	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	18 March 2017	Winterberg, Germany	Parallel slalom	2nd
2017–18	14 December 2017	Carezza, Italy	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	15 December 2017	Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	5 January 2018	Lackenhof, Austria	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	20 January 2018	Rogla, Slovenia	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	26 January 2018	Bansko, Bulgaria	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	3 March 2018	Kayseri, Turkey	Parallel giant slalom	2nd
	10 March 2018	Scuol, Switzerland	Parallel giant slalom	1st
2018–19	13 December 2018	Carezza, Italy	Parallel giant slalom	2nd
	15 December 2018	Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	16 February 2019	Pyeongchang, South Korea	Parallel giant slalom	1st
	17 February 2019		Parallel giant slalom	3rd
	23 February 2019	Secret Garden, China	Parallel giant slalom	2nd
	9 March 2019	Scuol, Switzerland	Parallel giant slalom	2nd

Alpine skiing

Season standings

Season	Age	Overall	Super-G	Downhill	Combined
2016	20	93	42	37	-
2017	21	77	38	34	-
2018	22	61	47	22	-
2019	23	54	28	24	-
2020	24	10	21	2	3

Race podiums

Season	Date	Location	Discipline	Place
2019–20	6 December 2019	Lake Louise, Canada	Downhill	1st
	8 February 2020	Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany	Downhill	3rd
	23 February 2020	Crans-Montana, Switzerland	Combined	3rd

Olympic results

• 2 medals – (2 golds)

Snowboarding

• 1 medal – (1 gold)

Year	Age	Parallel slalom	Parallel giant slalom
2014 Sochi	18	6	7
2018 Pyeongchang	22	N/A	1

Alpine skiing

• 1 medal – (1 gold)

Year	Age	Giant slalom	Super-G
2018 Pyeongchang	22	23	1

World Championships results

Snowboarding

• 3 medals – (2 gold, 1 silver)

Year	Age	Parallel  slalom	Parallel giant slalom
2011 La Molina	15	40	33
2013 Stoneham	17	17	16
2015 Kreischberg	19	1	5
2017 Sierra Nevada	21	2	1

Alpine skiing

Year	Age	Downhill	Super-G	Giant slalom	Slalom	Combined
2017 St. Moritz	21	21	29	37	—	20
2019 Åre	23	17	27	—	—	15

See also

• List of multi-sport athletes - Snowboarding
• Dual sport and multi-sport Olympians
• Czech Republic at the 2014 Winter Olympics
• Czech Republic at the 2018 Winter Olympics

References

1. Clarey, Christopher (27 November 2017). "Skiing or Snowboarding? Ester Ledecka Chose Both". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
2. Dampf, Andrew (22 February 2016). "Czech athlete transitions from snowboard to ski at World Cup". CTV News. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
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. Grim, Filip (3 February 2014). "Od sněhuláků přes zapomenuté lyže. Jak Ledecká startovala kariéru". Mladá fronta DNES (in Czech). Retrieved 7 February 2014.
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. "Ester Ledecká: how did she DO that?!". Retrieved 14 July 2020.
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. "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. 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. Lawton, Andrew (5 February 2014). "Winter Olympics 2014: Blagger's guide to snowboarding". The Telegraph. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
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. "Czech Republic names 85 athletes to Sochi Olympic team". AP. Sports Illustrated. 16 January 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
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. 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. "Ester Ledecka surprises ski world". International Ski Federation. 9 February 2016. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
16. Olympics Prime Time. National Broadcasting Company (USA). 16 February 2018. NBC.
17. Olympics Prime Time. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 16 February 2018. CBC.
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. Sugar, Jenny (18 February 2018). "Ester Ledecka Won Gold in the Super-G — and She Was Wearing Mikaela Shiffrin's Skis!". PopSugar.
20. "Ester Ledecka: Two sports, two golds, same Olympics". BBC. 24 February 2018.
21. McGee, Paul (27 July 2019). "Ester Ledecká interview". icetrail.com. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
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. Hodgetts, Rob (7 December 2019). "Dual Olympic champion Ester Ledecka wins first World Cup skiing race". cnn.com. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
24. "Ester Ledecka". FIS-Ski. International Ski Federation. Retrieved 15 January 2017.

External links

• Ester Ledecká at the International Ski Federation (as snowboarder)
• Ester Ledecká at the International Ski Federation (as alpine skier)
• Profile at Sochi2014.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 2014-06-28)
• Ester Ledecká at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
• Ester Ledecká at the International Olympic Committee
• Ester Ledecká on Facebook

Awards
Preceded by Karolína Erbanová	Czech Junior Athlete of the Year 2013 2015 (with Jiří Janošek)	Succeeded by Anežka Drahotová
Preceded by Gabriela Koukalová	Czech Athlete of the Year 2018	Succeeded by Lukáš Krpálek