Ester Ledecka has been a dominant force on her snowboard in Cortina d’Ampezzo, amassing four career World Cup parallel giant slalom victories, the most recent coming last month just before the Christmas holiday.

The versatile Czech athlete added her first Cortina Alpine World Cup podium to her numerous accomplishments at the 1956 Olympic resort, overcoming costly mistakes and nailing the lower section of the Olympia delle Tofane course to snag third place in Saturday’s downhill.

Kicking out of the start 17th, Ledecka knocked Cortina 2021 downhill world champion Corinne Suter off the podium, clocking 1:07.24 on a shortened race course, which was lowered due to gusty crosswinds on the piste. Ledecka finished just 0.26 seconds behind Italian favorite Sofia Goggia’s winning time.

“A lot of things could have been better – I was really not satisfied with my run when I came in the finish, even though it was fast,” Ledecka said, in the Cortina finish area after the race. “I still think there were a lot of mistakes which I shouldn’t have made, but I did quite well this last passage. I think we had a great plan with my coaches.”

For the 2018 Olympic ski and snowboard double gold medalist, it also marked her first ski racing podium of the 2021-’22 Olympic season.

Race organizers made the call to move the start down nearly 300 meters to the second reserve start to ensure the safety of the racers, eliminating the spectacular Tofane Schuss section. Ledecka said the late morning winds proved to be tricky, however luck was on her side.

“I felt it a little bit out of the start that I was going against something and then in the middle part a little bit also, but overall I think I was quite lucky with the wind – there were many girls that had much more wind,” Ledecka revealed. “I’m just very happy that we were able to make the race happen.”

Ledecka said that her overdue podium finish was particularly sweet considering that she narrowly missed medals, coming up fourth in both the world championship downhill and super-G, last February in the Italian Dolomites resort. The Czech racer was .07 and .06 out of the medals, respectively, in downhill and super-G.

“I’m very happy that I got revenge on this hill,” Ledecka said. “Although, even last year, I had solid runs and was happy with my performance here.”

Ledecka’s snowboard victories have come on the opposite side of Cortina’s Ampezzo Valley, on the Faloria slopes. Now, she also possesses a top three result on Cortina’s Tofane side, expanding her geographic mastery of the Northern Italian resort.

“It’s really funny because we are also in the same hotel, so when I came they were like ‘welcome back, how are you?’ and I said ‘I’m a skier now so let’s try and see how it goes on the other side,’” Ledecka said, with a big smile and excitement in her tone. “I really like the atmosphere here, the people are nice and the organizers always do such a great job, so it’s fun to race either here or there, it doesn’t matter.”

Ledecka said that she is still very much on track attempting to defend her Olympic super-G and snowboard PGS gold medals at next month’s Winter Games in China.

“Of course it’s a great opportunity because it’s the only place that I don’t have to travel so much, so it’s perfect,” Ledecka joked about the relatively close proximately between the Yanqing Olympic venue cluster, where ski racing will be contested, and the northern Zhangjiakou cluster, where snowboard events will be held.

Ledecka seeks a second consecutive podium in Sunday’s Cortina super-G, the discipline that she shocked the world in and stole Olympic gold out of the 26th start position at PyeongChang 2018.

Mikaela Shiffrin – who edged Ledecka by .06 seconds for the bronze medal at last season’s world championship super-G – has declared that she will race in Sunday’s race, perhaps once again enhancing the Czech skier/snowboarder’s task at hand.

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