Czech Snowboarder Takes Gold in Slalom Against Vonn
Heading into the Women’s Super-Giant Slalom race, many Americans expected the legendary Lindsey Vonn to walk away with a gold medal. The race took place on Saturday, February 15. Vonn went first down the racecourse, without any practice runs before the race to prepare herself. Going first may have lowered her chance of winning gold because her coaches at the bottom of the slope could not tell her beforehand what gates appeared tricky to other racers, and as a result she was not aware of which gates she needed to keep an eye out for.
When Vonn was a litte more than half way through the course she fell out of her line, falling far below the next gate that she was approaching. She lost momentum and had to use her energy to redirect herself slightly uphill to catch the next gate. Analysists believe that she potentially lost eight-tenths of a second from this mistake. Once at the bottom of the course, her reaction of holding her head in her hands, looking down at the snow revealed how upsetting the mistake was to her.
Shortly after Vonn’s run, Ester Ledecka, a 22-year-old Czech woman, beat not only Vonn’s time, but also Lara Gut’s and Tina Weirather’s. These are the three fastest women’s super-g skiers in the world that she defeated. Her final time bested Austrian star, Anna Veith’s, by one one-hundredth of a second, bumping Veith into second place. Ledecka’s final time was 1:21.11, while Veith’s was 1:21.12. Veith won gold in the super-g four years ago at Sochi, revealing how highly competitive and threatening Ledecka’s one run was.
Ledecka’s reaction after her run was one of complete disbelief and the crowd had a similar reaction of disbelief. However, they also encouraged her to celebrate her moment of victory by cheering for her at an insanely high volume. She kept looking up at her final time, almost as though she was waiting for the numbers to change. She thought a mistake was made and time would be added to her winning run. Luckily for Ledecka, the numbers stayed locked in place and she became the women’s super-g gold medal champion.
The most amazing part of this story is that Ledecka began her career as a snowboarder and is quite accomplished in that sport, having won two gold medals at the world championships. She is even considered a medal contender in the Olympics now in South Korea for snowboarding. After the super-g she became known as the fastest snowboarder on two skis. She never planned on making the podium for skiing events at all during this year’s winter Olympics. Prior to the Olympics she only had 19 World Cup starts, with just one finish in the top ten. This came on December 7 in a downhill at Lake Louise, Canada. In super-g she has never finished higher than No. 19. Even though it was a huge upset for Vonn, it’s hard not to be excited for Ledecka after such a great win!