Olympic champion Ester Ledecka pulls out of Snowboarding World Championships

Ester Ledecka, the 2018 Olympic champion in alpine skiing’s super-G and snowboarding’s parallel giant slalom, said Monday she was pulling out of the world snowboarding championships over an unspecified injury. The 25-year-old Czech was due to start competing at the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships at Rogla, Slovenia in a parallel giant slalom on Monday. She said she would not take part in Tuesday’s parallel slalom either. “I was getting ready for the races and looking forward, but I can’t even complete my stretching, let alone carry the snowboard over my head single-handed,” Ledecka said. “So I have decided I have nothing to do at the start,” she added in a statement published by her agent Sport Invest. “Together with my team, we will work hard so I could race at the skiing World Cup Final in Lenzerheide” on 17-21 March, Ledecka said. A crossover star, Ledecka won the season-opening snowboarding parallel giant slalom at Cortina d’Ampezzo in December. That was her first snowboard World Cup race for 11 months. A week later, she claimed her first World Cup super-G win in alpine skiing at Val d’Isere. Since then, Ledecka has become a regular in the top 10 of both alpine skiing’s super-G and downhill disciplines, finishing fourth in both events at the world championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo last month. She now stands eighth in the downhill rankings, fifth in super-G and 11th overall in the alpine skiing World Cup.