Ledecka achieves double gold
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Czech speed racer Ester Ledecka did what was considered impossible a mere week ago. She nabbed the second half of an unheard-of Olympic double by winning gold in snowboarding’s parallel giant slalom Saturday, only seven days after doing the same in skiing’s Alpine super-G.
Both these sports have well-known stars that have shined brightly over the two weeks of action on the slopes in South Korea: Chloe Kim, Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn are just a few. None have changed the conversation about what the Olympics can be in quite the manner as this soft-spoken 22-year-old from Prague, who insisted on wearing her goggles to the winner’s news conference, just as she did after her skiing win.
“Do whatever you want,” Ledecka said, when asked what the takeaway should be from her Olympic journey. “If you want to choose just one, choose one. I wanted to choose both, and a lot of people were telling me that it’s not possible to get on the top in both. And, I mean, obviously, this. It is not easy.”
She made it look easy on the last day of competition at the action park in an event that is usually considered an afterthought on the snowboarding program — but not this time.
This was no miracle on snow, a la her .01-second victory in the super-G that left her stone-faced and unbelieving at the bottom of the hill, wondering if there had been some kind of mistake. Ledecka came into that event having started in only 19 World Cup skiing races in her entire career.
She came into Saturday’s event with 14 wins, 20 podiums and two world championships on the World Cup snowboarding tour. This was her day job. She made it look that way with a wire-to-wire exhibition of tight carving, perfect lines and pure domination. Nobody could’ve been too surprised.
In PGS, the real action occurs over four elimination rounds — one-on-one racing in which the winners advance.
In a sport often decided by micro-fractions, Ledecka won one race when her opponent skidded off the course, and the others by margins of .97 seconds, .71 seconds and, in the final, by .46 seconds over Germany’s Selina Joerg.
She avoided all the typical pratfalls that can come while racing on snow, including, believe it or not, squirrels — one of which skittered in front of Austria’s Daniella Ubling and nearly lost its tail.
But maybe the best measure of Ledecka’s dominance came during the qualification rounds, which are timed to determine seeding. Her time on the faster of the two courses, 43.32 seconds, would’ve beaten seven of the men — nearly one fourth of the field — over the same track.
She says she has no desire to race the men — something Vonn has pointed toward over the past several months. But Ledecka’s win still sends a message: “For sure, there are no limits,” she said.