Ester Ledecka confirmed her position as the snow queen of these Winter Olympics – in fact, arguably, any Winter Games – with a supreme victory in the snowboard parallel giant slalom on Saturday.
The win made the 22-year-old from the Czech Republic the first woman to ever achieve gold medals in different sports at a Winter Games, following her sensational victory in the women’s Super-G skiing last weekend.
“This is fantastic,” she admitted. “It was something very special and I think I will think about this moment until the end of my life. I enjoyed every run and I’m very happy to be here and stand on the highest place on the podium.”
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Last year her snowboarding coach, Justin Reiter, insisted that Ledecka was “one of the greatest living athletes”. Yet few had thought it was possible to successfully double up. The sporting polymath – she is also a brilliant windsurfer – emphatically proved otherwise.
Ledecka had posted the fastest time in morning qualifying in the event, which sees snowboarders go head-to-head in a series of knockout races over a windy course. And after progressing through the rounds without undue trouble, she comfortably beat the German Selina Joerg by more than half a second in the final. Another German, Romana Theresia Hofmeister, took bronze.
It was impressive enough that she was the first person to compete in skiing and snowboarding at an Olympics. But to then take double gold was mind-blowing.
“It was a great feeling,” she admitted. “You know, on every race, I’m trying to do my best and I’m trying to ride every race the same – with 100%. So while I am very happy for me, it’s another race, another great race. I felt like that.”
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Ledecka creates Winter Olympics history with second gold – video
However, she admitted it had not always been easy to deal with the pressure of having so many great expectations on her shoulders. “It was much burden during the last week,” she said. “After the super-G, a lot of people were coming and saying, ’Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations’. I’m like, ‘Whoa, so nice’. Yet I was also thinking: ‘But OK, you have to change to snowboard already.’ I had quite a hard time. However today, I was just standing there and suddenly the snowboard girl comes in. I was just riding with the confidence, enjoying the race and having fun.”
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Ledecka started skiing when she was just two and got into snowboarding three years’ later to keep up with her older brother Jonas. “From the start there were a lot of people who would say, ‘it’s not possible to get to the top in both,’” she admitted. “But I wanted to do so, although obviously it’s not easy.”
No one will argue with that decision now. And the worrying news for her rivals is that Ledecka intends to carry on doing both events. “My plan is to stay with my heart, so for now I think I will do both because I love both,” she said.
After her victory in the Super-G, Ledecka celebrated with KFC chicken. This time, however, she has different plans. “I’m really looking forward to get to Europe for different cooking because it’s been quite a long time already here,” she admitted. “So no eating today. I will just go to bed because I’m quite tired.”
