Commentary

Versatile star no ordinary Olympian

PEYONGCHANG, South Korea -- Those ski goggles were the first clue.

Ester Ledecka kept them strapped on, concealing her eyes, as she sat down to answer questions at a news conference. When reporters grew curious, she explained that winning a gold medal had caught her off-guard.

"I don't have any makeup," she said, the room erupting in laughter.

That's when the world knew: This woman wasn't your ordinary Olympian.

The 22-year-old Czech had delivered the most stunning victory of the 2018 Winter Games, coming out of nowhere to win the Super-G by one-hundredth of a second last week.

On Saturday, she traded her skis for a snowboard to race as the favorite in the parallel giant slalom and it almost didn't matter how she did because no one had even attempted that before.

"I wish I had as much athleticism as she has," American downhill star Lindsey Vonn said. "That I could just hop from sport to sport."

Versatility isn't the only thing that has set Ledecka apart. With these Olympics shadowed by politics, the Russian doping scandal and even a norovirus outbreak, she has been the warmest ray of sunshine in chilly Pyeongchang.

Her smile and the way she punctuates sentences with a quick laugh have brought a certain glee to these Games. This is a champion who was spotted eating at KFC just hours after a big victory, a gold medal still dangling from her neck. "Don't tell my coaches," she reportedly said.

To view Ledecka as an outlier might be justified -- many elite athletes carry themselves more solemnly -- but to dismiss her as a novelty would be wrong.

Her bloodline includes a mother who was a figure skater and a grandfather who played for the Czech hockey teams that won bronze at the 1964 Innsbruck Olympics and silver four years later in Grenoble, France.

When Ester took to the slopes as a child, starting on skis and then strapping on a snowboard, her father Janek Ledecky -- Czechs sometimes vary the last vowel of their family name depending on gender -- recalled that he and his wife "were not pushy parents. It's the other way. We're trying to take her away from training, and from the slopes, some days."

As Ledecka grew up, coaches kept insisting that no one could excel at both sports, that she would have to choose.

Skiing and snowboarding are very different pursuits, requiring different skills, different senses of balance, but she saw a fundamental similarity.

"It's down the hill, both of them," she said after her win in the Super G. When reporters laughed, she turned serious for a moment: "No, it's the truth."

Alternating her workouts, she advanced far enough to join snowboarding's World Cup circuit in 2012 and then jump on the ski circuit in early 2016.

"It's her desire to do something completely special," said Justin Reiter, a former Olympic snowboarder who met Ledecka when she began training at the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club in Colorado.

They competed together for several years before he retired and became one of her coaches. Reiter worries about outsiders misinterpreting her sunny disposition.

"She's a really sweet girl," he said. "Yet she's an incredible beast in the gym."

Standing 5-8 and a solid 150 pounds, Ledecka is that rare athlete who takes joy in the grind required to succeed, Reiter said. He has also seen her deftly shift gears when moving from sport to sport.

Skiing demands a straighter line down the course. In snowboarding, things are more rounded out.

"The micro-adjustments are huge," Reiter said.

When asked about the challenge of mastering two distinct styles, she said: "I don't know how to do just one. For me, it's normal."

It turns out Ledecka is also skilled at windsurfing -- yet another Olympic event -- which raises the question: Might she consider trying for the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo?

"Yeah, for sure," she said. "Why not?"

With any other athlete, that response might be written off as a joke. But, as the last two weeks have shown, Ledecka isn't just any other athlete.

Sports on 02/24/2018

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