Out of nowhere, Czech captures women's super-g gold

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February 17, 2018 12:58 PM

An instant after completing her run in Saturday’s Olympic women’s super-G, Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic stood motionless in the snow as she gazed at the scoreboard where her name was atop the list of finishers.

She shook her head side to side, convinced that what she saw was a mistake or a timing glitch.

Professional snowboarders racing on hand-me-down skis do not win gold medals in ski events at the Winter Olympics.

“I thought they were going to put a couple more seconds on my time,” Ledecka later said, well aware that the race would be decided by hundredths of a second. “I was waiting for it.”

Ledecka came to the Pyeongchang Games planning to make history as the first person to compete at the Olympics in both skiing and snowboarding. Instead, she crashed the Alpine party at the women’s super-G with an astonishing upset victory.

Ledecka, currently ranked 43rd in the women’s World Cup super-G standings, outpaced a field that included American Lindsey Vonn, who was competing in the Olympics for the first time in eight years. Ledecka’s time of 1 minute 21.11 seconds was one-hundredth of a second faster — the narrowest margin of victory possible in Alpine racing — than the silver medalist Anna Veith, the defending champion in the event.

Ledecka’s highest finish in a World Cup super-G before Saturday had been 24th. Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein won the bronze medal.

Vonn had a chance at a medal, or maybe even the victory, but made a late, major mistake that ruined an otherwise strong run. She finished tied for sixth.

Veith had been celebrating her victory at the bottom of the racecourse as Ledecka pushed out of the start, the 26th racer of the day. Ledecka has won world championship medals in snowboarding but never came close to winning a World Cup ski race. Since skiers ranked in the top 20 in the event are allowed to go first, the race for the medals was considered over.

Then Ledecka charged down the mountain.

“She could never put it all together,” Italy’s Sofia Goggia, who finished 11th Saturday, said of Ledecka. “But today she did.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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