Ester Ledecká
Ester Ledecká 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. 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.
Early life
Ester Ledecká was born in Prague, to mother Zuzana, a figure skater and father Janek Ledecký, a well-known musician in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. 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. In 2014, she was still at high school, attending a distance-learning programme in Prague.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. "I was following what my brother did," Ester says. "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. She also enjoys participating in summer sports such as beach volleyball and windsurfing.
Career
Ledecká competed in her first World Cup tournament in the 2012–13 competition, finishing in 13th place in the parallel giant slalom event. 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. She was named "Junior Sportsperson of the year" at the Czech Republic's 2013 Sportsperson of the Year awards.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. In doing so, she also became just the third Czech to win any World Cup snowboarding event.
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. 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. 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.
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.
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. She went on to score points in four of her first five World Cup races, competing in the downhill and Super-G disciplines. 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.
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. Ledecká was ranked 49th in the event prior to the Olympics and had never medalled in any World Cup level international skiing event. To make the feat even more surprising to reporters, she was rumored to be allegedly racing on skis borrowed from Mikaela Shiffrin. She refused to remove her goggles for the post-victory press conference, insisting that this is her trademark, and when pressed by reporters she cleverly stated that she had skipped wearing makeup as she had not expected to win the event. 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. Ledecká was chosen as the flag bearer for the Czech Republic at the closing ceremony.
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.
World Cup results
All results are sourced from the International Ski Federation.Snowboarding
Season titles
- 7 titles –
| Season | Discipline |
| 2016 | Parallel overall |
| 2016 | Parallel giant slalom |
| 2017 | Parallel overall |
| 2018 | Parallel overall |
| 2018 | Parallel giant slalom |
| 2019 | Parallel overall |
| 2019 | Parallel giant slalom |
Season standings
Race podiums
- 17 wins –
- 28 podiums –
| Season | Date | Location | Discipline | Place |
| 2013–14 | 10 January 2014 |  Bad Gastein, Austria | Parallel slalom | 2nd |
| 2013–14 | 12 January 2014 | Bad Gastein, Austria | Parallel slalom | 3rd |
| 2013–14 | 18 January 2014 |  Rogla, Slovenia | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2014–15 | 9 January 2015 | Bad Gastein, Austria | Parallel slalom | 1st |
| 2014–15 | 7 February 2015 |  Sudelfeld, Germany | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2014–15 | 28 February 2015 |  Asahikawa, Japan | Parallel giant slalom | 3rd |
| 2015–16 | 12 December 2015 |  Carezza, Italy | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2015–16 | 23 January 2016 | Rogla, Slovenia | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2015–16 | 30 January 2016 |  Moscow, Russia | Parallel slalom | 3rd |
| 2015–16 | 27 February 2016 |  Kayseri, Turkey | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2016–17 | 15 December 2016 | Carezza, Italy | Parallel giant slalom | 2nd |
| 2016–17 | 17 December 2016 | Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy | Parallel slalom | 1st |
| 2016–17 | 28 January 2017 | Rogla, Slovenia | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2016–17 | 5 March 2017 | Kayseri, Turkey | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2016–17 | 18 March 2017 | Winterberg, Germany | Parallel slalom | 2nd |
| 2017–18 | 14 December 2017 | Carezza, Italy | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2017–18 | 15 December 2017 | Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2017–18 | 5 January 2018 | Lackenhof, Austria | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2017–18 | 20 January 2018 | Rogla, Slovenia | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2017–18 | 26 January 2018 |  Bansko, Bulgaria | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2017–18 | 3 March 2018 | Kayseri, Turkey | Parallel giant slalom | 2nd |
| 2017–18 | 10 March 2018 |  Scuol, Switzerland | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2018–19 | 13 December 2018 | Carezza, Italy | Parallel giant slalom | 2nd |
| 2018–19 | 15 December 2018 | Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2018–19 | 16 February 2019 |  Pyeongchang, South Korea | Parallel giant slalom | 1st |
| 2018–19 | 17 February 2019 | Pyeongchang, South Korea | Parallel giant slalom | 3rd |
| 2018–19 | 23 February 2019 |  Secret Garden, China | Parallel giant slalom | 2nd |
| 2018–19 | 9 March 2019 | Scuol, Switzerland | Parallel giant slalom | 2nd |
Alpine skiing
Season standings
Race podiums
Olympic results
| Year | Age | Parallel slalom | Parallel giant slalom |
| 2014 Sochi | 18 | 6 | 7 |
| 2018 Pyeongchang | 22 | 1 |
Alpine skiing
- 1 medal –
| Year | Age | Giant slalom | Super-G |
| 2018 Pyeongchang | 22 | 23 | 1 |
World Championships results
Snowboarding
- 3 medals –
| 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 |