Ledecka makes history, wins gold in second event
Czech Ester Ledecka, who made history on Saturday by winning gold in snowboard’s parallel giant slalom to go with her super-G victory in Alpine skiing last week, admits she has a split personality.
There is the persona she calls ‘Ester the skier’ and there is ‘Ester the snowboarder’.
Last week, after she shocked the Alpine ski world by her unexpected gold medal in super-G, Ledecka was afraid she might struggle to find her snowboarding half.
“After the super-G there was a lot of people congratulating, congratulating, congratulating. It was nice of course but I was thinking ‘but you have to change into a snowboarder now’.
“Then I was just standing there today at the start and suddenly the snowboarding girl showed up. For sure (there are two personalities) and today is a big day for snowboard Ester,” she said with a grin.
Like thousands of children around the world, the young Ledecka was advised at an early age to concentrate on one sport but one thing the two Esters have in common is a single-minded determination to follow their heart.
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“I chose to do both. A lot of people were telling me that it is not possible to get to the top in both and obviously it is not easy,” she said.
Her determination to prove the sceptics wrong was reflected in her pride at having succeeded in both.
NISKANEN TAKES GOLD
Finland’s Iivo Niskanen made an early break and held off a challenge from Alexander Bolshunov to win the 50km mass start classic cross-country ski race and get Finland’s first gold medal of the Games. Bolshunov, representing the Olympic Athletes from Russia, took silver 18.7 seconds behind Niskanen, with fellow OAR racer Andrey Larkov taking bronze.
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