PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — On a snowboard and skis, Ester Ledecka is a history-making Olympic gold medalist.
One of the surprising breakout stars of the Winter Games, the Czech pulled double-duty on the slopes and became the first to win snowboarding’s parallel giant slalom and skiing’s Alpine super-G.
She outraced Selina Joerg of Germany to the line in the final of the snowboarding event Saturday and won by .46 seconds. That came seven days after she won the super-G by .01 seconds and shocked everyone, including herself.
“It was a great day,” Ledecka said Saturday. “I enjoyed every run, and I’m very happy to be here and stand on the highest place.”
Ledecka had the fastest qualifying time in the women’s parallel giant slalom. Her fourth race was decided when her opponent slid off the course.
She had been considered a favorite for gold in snowboarding after being the top-ranked woman on the circuit, but hadn’t come even close to that success in skiing.
Until last week.
“(People) were reminding me, ‘Yeah, you’re a skier, you did a great success,’ which was very nice,” she said, “but I was thinking, ‘OK, but you have to change and be a snowboarder already.’ ”
No problems there.
“What happened here,” said Ledecka’s snowboard coach, Justin Reiter, “was once-in-a-lifetime.”
ALPINE TEAM EVENT: Switzerland won the debut of the event, but Norway’s third-place finish gave it a record 38 medals at a single Winter Olympics.
“Even underneath the suit, I get goosebumps talking about it,” Leif Kristian Nestvold-Haugen of Norway said.
CROSS COUNTRY SKIING: Iivo Niskanen beat out Russian rival Alexander Bolshunov with a strong sprint in the 50-kilometer mass start to give Finland its first gold.
“The first, but not the last,” Niskanen said. “Tomorrow is a new day. I (was) wanting to win my gold medal (over) this distance and it had been long years.”
MEN’S BIG AIR: Sebastien Toutant of Canada won the Olympic debut of the sport by scoring 174.25 points in the final.
Kyle Mack of the United States took second with a score of 168.75, and Billy Morgan of Britain earned bronze.
MEN’S HOCKEY: Andrew Ebbett, Chris Kelly and Derek Roy scored in the first period, and Canada took the bronze medal by beating the Czech Republic, 6-4.
It was the third bronze for Canada to go with nine gold medals for the country that created hockey, not that the Canadians seemed to mind much when the buzzer sounded. They hugged in celebration at the net where Kevin Poulin made 30 saves in his second straight start in place of the injured Ben Scrivens.
SPEEDSKATING: The debut of the mass start races worked out well for the host country, with Lee Seung-hoon of South Korea unleashing a final sprint to beat Belgian inline skater Bart Swings in the men’s event.
Nana Takagi of Japan blasted past opposition in the final straightaway to win the women’s gold from Kim Bo-reum of South Korea.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.