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Everyone hoped that the 2024 season would be Ester Ledecka’s return to skiing prominence after a collarbone injury that took a very long time to heal. This has not happened so far and it is a question whether it will be possible this year.
Ester Ledecká has so far won two snowboard races, which is great. But only 11th place in the super giant slalom (in January in Zauchensee) and 16th place in the downhill (in December in Val d’Isere). That’s not so good anymore.
She only reached the top twenty three times, not even once in the top ten. She didn’t finish once and had to miss two starts on the weekend in Cortina. He has thus completed only six races out of ten. Overall, she is crouching in 61st place in the women’s world cup rankings, right next to the second Czech competitor, Martina Dubovská.
She hadn’t experienced anything like that on skis when she was able to compete. In the 2022 season, she was 19th overall, 2021 13th, 2020 10th, 2019 54th.
Now two women’s SG races in Garmisch are canceled due to bad snow conditions. It’s both good and bad news for Ester. It’s good that he will be able to recuperate thanks to the canceled races. So if it is real, and we don’t know exactly from the piecemeal information from the team.
Ester struggles with an unpleasant and lingering cold. It started already in December. She partially recovered, but a snowboarding trip to Bulgaria knocked her down again. We know that she swallows a lot of pills, she visited a specialist doctor in Innsbruck and then in Munich, thanks to the help of her sponsor Red Bull, and she herself is sad about everything.
The good news turns to bad with the knowledge that what Ester needed to return to the top of the world downhill was to ride and ride. Cover the kilometers at a racing pace. And this is especially possible during races. The more races the better. But the downhill rider must be healthy to compete. And Ester was not in the last phase, she complained that she was weak and lacked the necessary strength.
The Czech amphibian is once again in a race against time.
The current situation and outlook look like this. According to information from the manufacturer of racing skis, Ester went home for further treatment. If it succeeds, she could start already on February 14th for the first downhill training in Crans Montana, Switzerland. If all goes well, two sharp descents and one SG would follow.
From Switzerland, the women will head to the Italian Val di Fassa, where on the 24th-25th 2. there will be two SG races. And from there to the Norwegian Kvitfjell, where the downhill and SG await them at the beginning of March.
Seven races to break into the elite
Ester thus has seven races ahead of her in order to break into the top of the world again. Or at least to be nominated for the finals of the world cup in Saalbach, Austria (mid-March), where she could show up in the last downhill and SG of the season.
The following conditions apply to participation in the final, which decides the final ranking in the men’s and women’s World Cup (overall and in individual disciplines), but is also a prestigious affair:
Only the top 25 athletes in the ranking of the respective disciplines and all skiers with more than 500 points in the overall ranking can enter the season finale. They will be joined by the reigning junior world champions.
For Ester, this means that she still has to earn a certain amount of points at all costs. No one will say exactly how much. However, thanks to the points in the overall standings, he practically has no chance of reaching the finals. So far, only 76 are holding them. A miracle would have to happen.
So far, he is in 30th place in the convention – i.e. out of order for participation in the final. She is 24th in SG, which would allow her to compete for now.
We dare to guess that if she rides like she has so far, participation in the congress will be uncertain, in SG probable. But all this on the assumption that she will no longer be hampered by illness.
