Czech Ester Ledecka chooses snowboarding over alpine downhill for Milan-Cortina Olympics
Ester Ledecka, the only woman to win gold in two different sports at the same Winter Olympics, has made a tough choice for the Milan-Cortina Games.
The Czech standout is skipping the alpine downhill event in order to seek a third straight Olympic gold in snowboarding's giant slalom after all efforts failed to avoid a scheduling conflict. With the two competitions taking place the same day, she simply can't compete in both.
The 30-year-old lodged an unsuccessful appeal to the International Olympic Committee with support from Johan Eliasch, the head of skiing's governing body FIS.
"I cried a bit few times about it, but we did the best we could," Ledecka said Monday. "I understand that it's not easy to coordinate the program, but I believed that it could be done. I'm the only athlete who has qualified for the event in two sports for the third time, so I was hoping that they would take that into account."
The schedule has the final of snowboarding's parallel giant slalom set for 1 p.m. in Livigno, Italy on Feb. 8. The women's downhill is set to take place in Cortina at 11:30 a.m. the same day.
It's about a four-hour drive between the two venues.
"At the moment we're certain that the program won't change," said Jiří Kejval, head of the Czech Olympic Committee. "We're sorry about it but we did the maximum under the given circumstances."
Ledecka was the only woman to even qualify to compete in both alpine skiing and snowboarding in 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea. She went on to pull off a stunning double by taking gold in the super-G and the parallel giant slalom.
At the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, she defended her snowboarding gold and finished fifth in the super-G, 27th in the downhill and fourth in the alpine combined.
At this year's alpine skiing world championships, she took bronze in the downhill.
The women's super-G at next year's Olympics is scheduled for Feb. 12, so Ledecka should be able to take part.
cbc.ca
