‘As good as Maradona’, Tottenham boss hails Dembele
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea: Esterter Ledecka has written a fresh chapter in the history of racing down snow-coveredred slopes by becoming the first person to win an Olympic gold medal in both alpineine skiing and snowboarding.
The Czech skier will leave Pyeongchangang as one of the stand-out athletes of the 2018018 Games after adding the gold medal in parallel giant slalom to her gold in alpineine skiing’s super-g.
No athlete had competed in snowboardard and alpine skiing at any Winter Gamesmes since snowboarding made its Gamesmes debut at Nagano in 1998. Her triumph of winning golds in both sports is one thathat could well remain unique.
Ledecka’s stunned reaction to winningng the women’s super-g last Saturday aheadead of favourites including Anna Veith, Tinaina Weirather and Lindsey Vonn will remainn a lasting image of the Pyeongchang Games.es.
In Saturday’s parallel giant slalom, as world champion and World Cup terminator — she has won five of the seven parallel giant slalom races this season — the gold was hers to lose at Phoenix Snow Park.
Ledecka though could not be touched, beating Germany’s Selina Joergin the final after eliminating some formidable opponents along the way — 2014 Olympic LONDON: Tottenham make the short journey across London to take on Crystal Palace on Sunday with manager Mauricio Pochettino comparing midfielder Mousa Dembele to Diego Maradona.
“I have said before that he is a genius of football,” said the Spurs boss of the Belgium international.
“I put him next to Ronaldinho, Maradona, (Jay-Jay) Okocha — players that I was lucky to play with.
“For me he is one of the unbelievable talents in the history of football. Now he is in an amazing moment and for me he deserves all the praises that people are giving him. ”
Those comments will certainly have raised a few eyebrows on both sides of the River Thames as Tottenham look to clamber above champion Patrizia Kummer of Switzerland, parallel slalom world champion Daniela Ulbing of Austria and Ramona Theresia Hofmeister of Germany, who took bronze.
What’s the difference between the two gold medals, she was asked? “This one is from snowboarding, that’s the difference, otherwise this one is the same,” was the Chelsea and Liverpool, the teams directly above them in the Premier League.
The Argentinian has a full squad available with defender Toby Alderweireld the only doubt because of a hamstring problem sustained in a training session on Thursday.
The 28-year-old is Dembele’s international team-mate and is expected to be a key figure in his nation’s attempts to win the World Cup for the first time this summer.
However, contract negotiations have stalled to the extent that he could well be at another club by then and Pochettino made it clear he would be playing no part in the talks.
“It is not my job and I cannot say anything about that,” he said. “I am not involved in negotiations. I laconic reply.
Ledecka says she plans to continue racing in both sports “as long as I have fun with both,” but it has been a long Olympics for the 22-year-old, who also competed in alpine skiing’s giant slalom.
“Tomorrow is the finish of the Olympics, right? I was here many days, I’m really looking forward to getting home,” she sasaid.
LeLedecka also admitted it had been difficudifficult switching mentally from skier to snowbsnowboarder, simply because of all the congrcongratulations she was receiving after the supersuper-g.
“BBut I was thinking, ‘But OK, you have to chchange to snowboard already’. I had quite a hard time now,” she said.
“TToday, I was just standing there and suddesuddenly the snowboard girl comes in. I was just riding with the confidence, enjoyenjoying the race and having fun.”
LeLedecka’s victory rather overshadowed the mmen’s event, where Nevin Galmarini of SwitzSwitzerland won the gold medal to add to his silsilver from four years ago in Sochi.
“ThThe last one, the silver, was already like gold,” he said.
“FFor me it was an incredible day back then iin Sochi and today... I don’t know, it’s a diffdifferent level. I’m still trying to realise (what has happened). It’s awesome.”
Galmarini beat South Korea’s Lee SangHo in the big final, while Sochi bronze medallist Zan Kosir of Slovenia defeated Sylvain Dufour of France for another bronze.
Canada’s Sebastien Toutant captured the first Olympic gold in men’s big air on its Games debut. never talk about rumours, what the media say or what happens around the club.”
Pochettino developed a relationship with Palace manager Roy Hodgson when the latter was in charge of England, and regularly picked Spurs players.
Tottenham beat Palace 1-0 at Wembley in December when Hodgson was beginning to lift the Eagles out of relegation trouble, having succeeded Frank de Boer in September.
“Roy and his staff are doing a fantastic job,” Pochettino said.
“It will be good to see them again. But for me it will be a battle. We need to match them in the areas of motivation, ready to fight and then of course try to deliver our way and our game.
“Of course it will be very tough. It will be very important to win the three points, fighting for the top four. The idea is to win, the idea if to fight, to be ready. The three points are massive for us.”
Palace’s hopes of putting distance between themselves and the bottom three have been hampered by a frustrating run of injuries that has deprived Hodgson of 12 senior players.
“It was always going to be a difficult game, even if I could resuscitate these 12 players and add them to those that we have to give us a very good squad, it would still be a tough game,” said Hodgson.
“Whatever way you look at it, we are a bottom of the table team at the moment and they are a team chasing not only the Champions League honours, they are chasing second place in the league.”