Ester Ledecká (, born 23 March 1995) is a Czech snowboarder and alpine skier. At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Ledecká won gold medals in the super-G in alpine skiing and in the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding, becoming the first person to not only compete in the Winter Olympics using two different types of equipment (skis and snowboard) but to go further and win two gold medals and do so at the same Winter Olympics. She was the second woman to win an Olympic gold in two separate disciplines but the first to do so at the same Winter Olympics. She was the first Czech to win the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding at the FIS Snowboard World Cup.
Early life Ester Ledecká was born in Prague, to mother Zuzana, a figure skater, and father Janek Ledecký, a well-known musician in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. She comes from a sporting family: her maternal grandfather is a former ice hockey player Jan Klapáč, who was a seven-time World Championship and two-time Olympic medallist. In 2014, she was still at high school, attending a distance-learning programme in Prague.
Ice hockey was the first sport she took up as a child, before taking up skiing at the age of four and later adding snowboarding. "I was following what my brother did," Ledecká says. "He is one and a half years older than me, and so when he started with a board, I wanted to do it too. I was five years old when I started snowboarding, and I did freestyle snowboarding and boardercross until I was about thirteen years old. And again, it was my brother who started with alpine snowboarding, and I wanted to beat him, so I learned that too."
Her hobbies include playing the guitar and singing. She also enjoys participating in summer sports such as beach volleyball and windsurfing.
Career Ledecká competed in her first World Cup tournament in the 2012–13 competition, finishing in 13th place in the parallel giant slalom event. In March 2013, at the age of 17, she won gold in the parallel slalom event at the Junior World Championships, her second gold of the competition. She was named "Junior Sportsperson of the year" at the Czech Republic's 2013 Sportsperson of the Year awards.
During the 2013–14 FIS Snowboard World Cup, Ledecká placed second behind Patrizia Kummer in the first parallel slalom event in Bad Gastein and third in the second event. She subsequently won gold at Rogla in the parallel giant slalom event at the same competition, becoming the first Czech to do so. In doing so, she also became just the third Czech to win any World Cup snowboarding event.
Ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics, The Daily Telegraph's Andrew Lawton mentioned Ledecká as the "one to watch" in the women's snowboarding competition. She was among the Czech athletes most expected to win a medal at the games, along with Martina Sáblíková, Gabriela Soukalová and fellow snowboarder Eva Samková. After she had finished ninth in qualifying for the alpine skiing event at the Winter Olympics, the Czech Ski Association attempted to register her as a competitor. However, the FIS rejected the proposal, reiterating that only eight Czechs could compete.
Ledecká made her Olympic debut at the 2014 Winter Olympics on 19 February 2014 in the parallel giant slalom snowboarding event. She reached the quarter-final stage before being eliminated by Patrizia Kummer, who went on to win the gold medal in the event. Ledecká was classified as seventh overall.
Ledecká has combined her snowboarding career with competing in alpine skiing: she made her debut on the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in February 2016, finishing 24th in her first race, the Kandahar downhill in Garmisch. She went on to score points in four of her first five World Cup races, competing in the downhill and Super-G disciplines. In 2017 she became the first sportsperson to compete in World Championships in both skiing and snowboarding, taking a gold in the parallel giant slalom and a silver in the parallel slalom at the Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships in Sierra Nevada, Spain, and scoring top 30 finishes in the downhill, super-G and alpine combined at the Alpine Skiing World Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Ledecká made her Olympic debut in alpine skiing at the 2018 Winter Olympics while also being qualified for alpine snowboarding. She won the gold medal in super-G in alpine skiing at the 2018 Winter Olympics in a historic upset. She was visibly shocked after finishing 0.01 seconds ahead of the 2014 Olympics defending gold medalist Anna Veith, who had already been proclaimed the winner by many media outlets. Ledecká was ranked 49th in the event before the Olympics and had never medalled in any World Cup level international skiing event. To make the feat even more surprising to reporters, she was rumored to be allegedly racing on skis borrowed from Mikaela Shiffrin (both racers are sponsored by Atomic). She refused to remove her goggles for the post-victory press conference, insisting that this is her trademark (which is true), and when pressed by reporters, she stated that she had skipped wearing makeup as she had not expected to win the event. Her snowboard coach, American Justin Reiter, arrived at the start of the Ladies PGS event with his reversible Czech team jacket confidently already turned gold side out. After victory in the parallel giant slalom she became the first ever female athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in two different disciplines during the same Winter Olympics (Anfisa Reztsova had previously won gold in different disciplines but not at the same Olympics, nor using completely different equipment: cross country skiing in 1988 and biathlon in 1992 and 1994). Ledecká was chosen as the flag bearer for the Czech Republic at the closing ceremony.
In the 2018–19 Alpine Ski World Cup, Ledecká finished 24th in the downhill standings and 28th in super-G. In December 2019, Ledecká scored her first win on the Alpine Ski World Cup in downhill at Lake Louise, eclipsing her previous personal best World Cup downhill result of seventh at the same venue two years previously. In December 2020, she won her first World Cup Super-G race.
Ledecká continued to split her time between snowboarding and Alpine skiing, finishing second in World Cup Alpine skiing in the downhill for the 2020 season and third for the 2022 season, as well as third in the combined in 2020, the last season it has been contested due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2022 Winter Olympics, Ledecká repeated as the snowboarding gold medalist in parallel giant slalom, while in Alpine skiing she finished fifth in super-G and fourth in combined. However, she was injured while training during the summer of 2022 and targeted a possible return during February 2023. Ultimately, she was unable to return for the Alpine skiing world championships in February but made it back for the final snowboarding races in March at Berchtesgaden, where she won the women's parallel slalom for her only win of the season.
On Thursday March 20, 2025, Ledecká made history as she claimed her third World Championship gold in the parallel giant slalom at St. Moritz, becoming the first athlete in the world to win two FIS World Championship medals in the same season, in two different disciplines.
World Cup results All results are sourced from the International Ski Federation (FIS).
Snowboarding Season titles 7 titles – (4 parallel overall, 3 parallel giant slalom) Season Discipline 2016 Parallel overall Parallel giant slalom 2017 Parallel overall 2018 Parallel overall Parallel giant slalom 2019 Parallel overall Parallel giant slalom
Season standings Season Age ParalleloverallParallelslalomParallelgiant slalom 2013 17 15 16 15 2014 18 2 2 3 2015 19 3 8 2 2016 20 1 5 1 2017 21 1 2 3 2018 22 1 24 1 2019 23 1 13 1 2020 24 17 8 17 2021 25 23 — 13 2022 26 15 — 12 2023 27 18 15 20 2024 28 13 3 — 2025 29 24 20 26 2026 30 23 — 22
Race podiums 26 wins – (20 PGS, 6 PSL) 40 podiums – (29 PGS, 11 PSL) SeasonDateLocationDiscipline Place 2013–14 10 January 2014 Bad Gastein, Austria Parallel slalom 2nd 12 January 2014 Parallel slalom 3rd 18 January 2014 Rogla, Slovenia Parallel giant slalom 1st 2014–15 9 January 2015 Bad Gastein, Austria Parallel slalom 1st 7 February 2015 Sudelfeld, Germany Parallel giant slalom 1st 28 February 2015 Asahikawa, Japan Parallel giant slalom 3rd 2015–16 12 December 2015 Carezza, Italy Parallel giant slalom 1st 23 January 2016 Rogla, Slovenia Parallel giant slalom 1st 30 January 2016 Moscow, Russia Parallel slalom 3rd 27 February 2016 Kayseri, Turkey Parallel giant slalom 1st 2016–17 15 December 2016 Carezza, Italy Parallel giant slalom 2nd 17 December 2016 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Parallel slalom 1st 28 January 2017 Rogla, Slovenia Parallel giant slalom 1st 5 March 2017 Kayseri, Turkey Parallel giant slalom 1st 18 March 2017 Winterberg, Germany Parallel slalom 2nd 2017–18 14 December 2017 Carezza, Italy Parallel giant slalom 1st 15 December 2017 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Parallel giant slalom 1st 5 January 2018 Lackenhof, Austria Parallel giant slalom 1st 20 January 2018 Rogla, Slovenia Parallel giant slalom 1st 26 January 2018 Bansko, Bulgaria Parallel giant slalom 1st 3 March 2018 Kayseri, Turkey Parallel giant slalom 2nd 10 March 2018 Scuol, Switzerland Parallel giant slalom 1st 2018–19 13 December 2018 Carezza, Italy Parallel giant slalom 2nd 15 December 2018 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Parallel giant slalom 1st 16 February 2019 Pyeongchang, South Korea Parallel giant slalom 1st 17 February 2019 Parallel giant slalom 3rd 23 February 2019 Secret Garden, China Parallel giant slalom 2nd 9 March 2019 Scuol, Switzerland Parallel giant slalom 2nd 2019–20 14 January 2020 Bad Gastein, Austria Parallel slalom 2nd 18 January 2020 Rogla, Slovenia Parallel giant slalom 1st 2020–21 12 December 2020 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Parallel giant slalom 1st 2021–22 16 December 2021 Carezza, Italy Parallel giant slalom 2nd 18 December 2021 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Parallel giant slalom 1st 2022–23 15 March 2023 Rogla, Slovenia Parallel giant slalom 2nd 18 March 2023 Berchtesgaden, Germany Parallel slalom 1st 2023–24 20 January 2024 Pamporovo, Bulgaria Parallel slalom 1st 21 January 2024 Parallel slalom 1st 9 March 2024 Winterberg, Germany Parallel slalom 1st 2024–25 30 November 2024 Mylin, China Parallel giant slalom 1st 2025–26 23 January 2026 Simonhöhe, Austria Parallel giant slalom 1st
Alpine skiing Season standings Season Age OverallSuper-GDownhillCombined 2016 20 93 42 37 — 2017 21 77 38 34 — 2018 22 61 47 22 — 2019 23 54 28 24 — 2020 24 10 21 2 3 2021 25 13 5 8 rowspan=6 2022 26 17 23 3 2023 27 injured, did not compete in alpine skiing 2024 2823623 2025 2921168 20263017514
Race podiums 4 wins (2 DH, 2 SG) 12 podiums (7 DH, 4 SG, 1 AC), 49 top tens SeasonDateLocationDiscipline Place2019–20 6 December 2019 Lake Louise, Canada Downhill 1st8 February 2020 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany Downhill 3rd23 February 2020 Crans-Montana, Switzerland Combined 3rd2020–21 20 December 2020 Val-d'Isère, France Super G 1st22 January 2021 Crans-Montana, Switzerland Downhill 2nd2021–22 22 January 2022 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Downhill 3rd26 February 2022 Crans-Montana, Switzerland Downhill 1st27 February 2022 Downhill 2nd2023–243 March 2024 Kvitfjell, Norway Super G 3rd22 March 2024 Saalbach, AustriaSuper G1st 2024–2511 January 2025 St. Anton, Austria Downhill 3rd 2025–2618 January 2026 Tarvisio, Italy Super G 3rd
Olympic results 3 medals – (3 golds)
Snowboarding 2 medals – (2 golds) Year Age ParallelslalomParallelgiant slalom 2014 Sochi 18 6 7 2018 Pyeongchang 22 rowspan=3 1 2022 Beijing 26 1 2026 Milano Cortina 30 5
Alpine skiing 1 medal – (1 gold) Year Age Giant slalomSuper-GDownhillCombined 2018 Pyeongchang 22 23 1 — — 2022 Beijing 26 — 5 27 4 2026 Milano Cortina 30 — DNF —
World Championships results 6 medals – (3 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze)
Snowboarding 5 medals – (3 gold, 2 silver)