The coaches are convinced that the FIS is making a terrible mess of us, says Ledecká

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Ester Ledecká last competed at the World Snowboard Championship in 2017, when she won gold and silver in Sierra Nevada. She shared the longing of beautiful memories from the mountains in Andalusia with King Philip VI of Spain this April when she received the award for the best athlete of the European Union at the El Pardo Palace. “The King and Queen of Spain are terrible fellows. The king and I talked about how we both like the Sierra Nevada,” she recounted.

Other championships on the board eluded her either due to a schedule conflict with the skiing championship or health problems. In the new season, however, the phenomenal amphibian, who captivated the world in 2018 with two gold medals at the PyeongChang Olympic Games in two sports, does not have to set priorities at the top event. “This time the World Championships are not overlapping, which is amazing, so I will go to both if everything goes as it should,” she boasted at the press conference.

However, how would she behave if she had a chance for a breakthrough result in the skiing World Cup and instead of the series finale, she should aim for the board?

“It would be a difficult decision, but it’s still a long way off. The best thing would be if I rode so terribly well that I would have secured the globe earlier and then I would go to snowboard races, which I would enjoy,” the 29-year-old Prague native mentions the ideal scenario.

While the championships are not concurrent, World Cup events in both of its sports often overlap on the calendar. “The coaches are convinced that the FIS is making a terrible mess of us. All ski races, especially speed races, that I ride, coincide exactly with snowboard races. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or an intention. I hope that this is not the intention,” believes Ledecká.

She has heard several times that if she finally puts down her beloved board, she can even win a big globe on skis. But that wouldn’t be her, a sporting failure.

She is a two-time Olympic champion and two-time world champion in snowboarding. Of the last ten World Cup races, which she has competed in parallel disciplines since 2020, she has won seven and three second places. “It already has such a tradition that whenever I come to snowboard, it’s always the boys who prefer it. But even the girls bear it bravely,” she smiles.

Doing two sports at the top has all kinds of pitfalls. For example, in the anti-doping system, she appears as both a skier and a snowboarder, so she can have twice as many checks. “It may happen that I get both checks at the same time. They won’t say that I’m the same person. It happened to me, for example, that we had an inspection twice in a row in one week,” she says.

She adds a story from the inspection after her first world title, which she won as a nineteen-year-old in Lachtal, Austria. She won the parallel slalom at the snowboard championship, and a day later she was waiting for the giant slalom race. She still had to undergo regeneration, including cycling, so she tried to speed up her doping.

“I drank about four liters of water per ex. I peed just fine, but then I started to squirm. I learned that you can get drunk like this in peace, that you normally get poisoned by water and that it is the same as if you poisoned yourself with alcohol. So I can’t compare it because I’ve never been drunk with alcohol,” she laughs. “We were so messed up that I couldn’t even ride the exercise bike because I couldn’t get on it.”

She then headed to dinner where everyone congratulated her on her title. She had to hold on to things herself to keep from falling. “The coach came to see if I was drunk or what was going on, that I started celebrating early, that I had to compete the next day. I tried to explain to him that it happened to me because I got drunk from the water.”

He will enter the snowboarding season before the first World Cup in speed disciplines. On November 30 and December 1, SP races are held in Mylin, China. “We are going to hug you. It will be challenging. We will fly from Europe to China and then to America. That jet lag is going to be severe. Let’s hope that I will not fall asleep at the races, that I will leave with honor,” he wishes.

On the ski slopes, she would also like to compete again in the giant slalom, which she entered for the last time in the WC in Sölden 2021. She also trained it with the men’s French team and felt good about herself. “They said that too, which was all the better. They asked if I raced in the top ten, so I told them that I don’t race in the top ten,” she said.

The complication, however, is the high starting number with which she would have to ride, as she has no points. “So I would be terribly behind, maybe around eighty. It’s hard to fight your way into your thirties. The plan is that I will go around as many ski races as possible so that I have 500 points in the World Cup, and then they would start me right away in my thirties,” she outlined.

The three-time Olympic champion has had a difficult past season. She was limited by health problems for a long time, she was coming back from a broken collarbone, which, with the exception of a few snowboard races, deprived her of the 2022/23 year. In the past season, she suffered whooping cough again.

“The beginning was slow. We did not expect that after a year I would be immediately on the crate, but unfortunately my return was further complicated by illness. “I originally thought it was a small cold, but according to the doctors’ findings, it developed into whooping cough,” she revealed some time ago. “I recommend everyone not to cross it and stay at home. It’s not good, I thought I wouldn’t stop coughing. Fortunately, the second antibiotic worked and then things started to go well. Since Crans Montana I could train more, I didn’t choke after every ride and I started to enjoy it more.”

It was visible. At the end of the year, she got in shape. In March, she finished third in the super-G in Kvitfjell, Norway, and dominated the same discipline in the last SP in Saalbach. In the final standings of the series, she took 23rd place with a score of 374 points. She added further successes on snowboarding, mastering all three parallel slalom races in which she entered.

“I enjoyed it enough. It was 100 percent on the snowboard. It took a while on the skis, but we finally got where we wanted to be. I have to thank the team, because thanks to them I was able to end the season at the top like this,” she assessed.

After the season, in addition to meeting the royal couple, she tried shooting with the Norwegian star biathlete Johannes Thingnes Bö and attended the matches of the Czech hockey players at the home world championship. The granddaughter of the 1972 world hockey champion Jan Klapáč predicted gold for the representatives.

However, instead of time off, she would welcome a longer racing season. This also shows that he is not ready to settle for one sport just yet. “I would put snowboard races in the week and ski races on the weekend. And she extended the season until at least June!”

After all, with small breaks in the snow, it was until June. Then she continued with the traditional summer fitness training in Greece, surfing a lot. “I can’t imagine lying on a deckchair and sunbathing. I keep moving,” she added.

She flew straight from Lefkada to a snowboard camp in Europe, then spent five weeks skiing in Chile with the team. He can’t turn it off. Snowboard coach Justin Reiter therefore threatens her with several days off. “He starts taking out the gates. Such things happen on a daily basis. In the final, I’m grateful that the boys look after me like this,” she smiles. “I have a great physiotherapist, Laďa Polášek, who is with me on skis and snowboards and during summer training. He knows what I’ve been through, how my body is. He is sometimes very strict, for example, he won’t let me lift the weights I would like.’

At the same time, she tested skis at the camp in Chile. Serviceman Gunthram Mathis prepared 42 pairs of skis for five weeks. “He takes about six pairs to the hill for me every day. Even though sometimes we only do four runs when it’s a tough downhill. We now have a much better overview of what skis we have and how fast they are. Hopefully it will work out,” hopes Ledecká.

Physically, he feels noticeably better than last year. “The body works well. We managed the preparation with honor,” she praised herself, although at the end of the camp there was already a small submarine in the team. “Láňa Polášek and I were just looking at each other. As soon as we had the submarine, communication took over. I don’t particularly mind. Then I’m in my cave like Batman. I climb out of the cave, go skiing, then crawl back in. It suits me, only when I go back to normal life, then I’m out of it.”

He is no longer on the slopes. When she mastered the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding at the 2022 Beijing Games, she was also fourth in the alpine combined and fifth in the super-G, confirming that she belongs to the top in both sports. He has 28 World Cup victories and 52 podium finishes combined in both sports. She holds four major and three minor crystal globes in snowboarding. In the overall standings of the Ski World Cup, she finished second in the downhill (2020) and third twice in the super combined (2020) and downhill (2022).

Before turning thirty, she gained a lot of experience, which is very useful in downhill skiing. She recognizes that she has to be her own psychologist, which overcomes fear especially when jumping. A correctly evaluated level of risk can bring the courageous amphibian closer to further success.