Ester “STR” Ledecká, the best Czech alpine skier and snowboarder, got into the world of alpine skiing like a hurricane. At the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang in 2018, she won a gold medal as a huge underdog in the Super-G.
Many remember her confused face as she stared in utter disbelief at her name, which shone in the first place on the scoreboard, just after she had finished the race. Then some days later she added the second, somewhat expected gold, in the snowboarding discipline of Parallel Giant Slalom. She will be one of the hot favorites again at the FIS Alpine World Championship which had to be held from February 8th to February 21st in Cortina Italy, with athletes from about 70 countries competing for 13 titles.
But the first couple of events of the alpine World Championships event were postponed because of the heavy snow and avalanche. When everything seemed ready to go on Tuesday February 9th and all the forerunners had skied down the womens “Olympia Delle Tofane” Super-G course, fog moved in and even after the organizers had moved the start down and shortened the course and a few shorter 15 minutes and 30 minutes delays, the race had to be rescheduled for Thursday February 11th.
Ester is the first athlete in Olympic history who has won in two different winter sports during the same year. She is also the first Czech alpine skier to win Olympic gold and the first Olympian in Czech history to compete in alpine skiing and snowboarding.
Could Ester Ledecká win again, we are going to know very soon.
Another athlete we are eager to watch is Kajsa Vickhoff Lie from Norway. She is 22 years old, and she already got her first podium this year, in Garmisch (Germany). She has multiple achievements in the Junior World Championships.
She was saying that her favourite world cup is in Italian Cortina, so we hope she can show how she progressed in the upcoming Super-G races.
A super-talent from New Zealand, 19 years old Alice Robinson has a genuine chance of making the podium at the Alpine Skiing World Championships. In what is her second world championships, 19-year-old Robinson was one of a number of skiers who was kept waiting as fog shrouded the upper parts of women’s Super-G course a couple of days ago. The Kiwi finished 32nd and 33rd in her last two world cup races in the Super-G discipline.
Lara Gut-Behrami is the main favorite to take the gold in the Super-G discipline. Unlike some of the other races, a clear favourite stands out for the Super-G with the Swiss skier who has won four of the last five World Cup races in the discipline likely to return to the top.
She has won five world championship medals, including a silver (2013) and bronze medal (2017) in the Super-G. Lara claimed her fourth win in a row in Super-G at the Alpine World Cup event in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
The Swiss skier finished in a time of 1:15.70 – 0.68 seconds ahead of Norway’s Kajsa Vickhoff Lie.
“It is super cool to be this fast again. I am happy that my confidence is back,” Gut-Behrami said after the race.