Czech snowboarder Ledecka stuns Alpine world with super-g gold
Czech snowboarder Ester Ledecka produced one of the biggest shocks in the history of the Winter Olympics when she tore down Jeongseon slope in bib number 26 to win the women’s Alpine skiing super-g on Saturday.
The 22-year-old rank outsider – rated 43rd in the World Cup standings in super-g – was thought to have a much better chance of gold in the snowboarding events she will also contest in Pyeongchang, an unprecedented doubling up, Reuters reported.
Bib 26 was the starting position for a racer with only the slimmest chance of getting near the podium, and the top contenders clearly thought the medals had been sewn up by skiers in the top 20 spots.
When Ledecka started her run, Austrian Anna Veith was at the bottom of the slope already taking phone calls and receiving the congratulations of her rivals for becoming the first woman to win back-to-back titles in the Olympic super-g.
Ledecka could barely believe it herself when the green light indicated she had bumped Veith out of the gold-medal position by one hundredth of a second to give her country its first Alpine skiing gold medal.
“I was wondering what just happened. Is this a kind of mistake?,” she said.
”I was thinking okay, they’re going to change the time, I‘m going to wait for a little bit and they’re going to switch and put some seconds on.
“I was just staring at the board and nothing was happening and everybody was screaming. I just started to think okay, this is weird.”
Veith’s time of 1.21.12 was only enough for silver, while Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather claimed bronze in 1:21.22 after earlier bumping Swiss World Cup leader Lara Gut off the top of the timesheets by the slenderest of margins.
”I thought I had gold,“Veith said. ”For me it was a big surprise that she could do this. At first I thought ‘is this possible?’
“She did a really good run and I want to congratulate her because the Olympics is so special and anything can happen. It was so tight.”
“We have fair chances from bib one to bib 50, the slope is so good.”
Meanwhile, Marit Bjoergen skied a triumphant final leg to write her name in the Olympic record books, delivering gold for Norway in the women’s 4x5km relay on Saturday and joining countryman Ole Einar Bjoerndalen as the most successful winter Olympian of all time on 13 medals.
Sweden took silver, two seconds behind, after powerful performances by Charlotte Kalla, Ebba Andersson and Stina Nilsson, while the Olympic Athletes from Russia came third to take the bronze, 43.3 seconds behind the winners.
Bjoergen got the glory but Norway’s win was firmly rooted in a stunning third leg by Olympic 10km freestyle champion Ragnhild Haga, who erased a gap of almost half a minute to tee up Bjoergen for victory.
The Swedes also had to overcome a big gap to the leaders after a slow first leg by Anna Haag but Kalla, who took Olympic gold in the women’s skiathlon, charged around her two laps to put them back in contention.
“I have been nervous, I haven’t been able to train for this,” Bjoergen told Norwegian television.
“But I just had to grind and wear out her (Nilsson‘s) legs, and I did that. She didn’t manage the last turn and I‘m surprised I managed it. She was on my heels in the last uphill,” Bjoergen added.
Bjoergen received plenty of plaudits from her competitors following her historic achievement.
“She is an absolute legend, it’s really, really cool to see her race every single time, she just skis with absolute control,” American racer Jessica Diggins told Reuters.