Recently, she ran down the slopes in Austria and cheerfully told the Rights Magazine about her musical talents, resistance to shopping and innate competitiveness among her trainings.
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We have a two-month state of emergency behind us. After how long could you return to the slopes?
After fourteen days. I snowboarded in Seefeld until March 13, had full time off for another five days and then started training at home. On the first of April I got permission to train and went to the snow on Červenohorské sedlo, which is an amazing area by the way. Beautiful slopes and a snowmobile who would envy them all over the world! An unbelievable fighter. Nowhere is a better groomed piste, and that I’ve already experienced a few of them…
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I was at Sedlo until April 15, and then the boys told me where there are still spots of snow in the Czech Republic, and I set off. She paid for the snowmobile, the snowmobile, loaded the scooter, and drove off. I skied like this until April 30, which is usually the date when I normally return home from the winter season.
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So the period when you couldn’t go to the snow was bearable for you?
I had a short break from the snow, the real one will come only in the summer. I always have the longest holiday of all skiers and snowboarders in the world. I am by the water for a quarter of a year, doing summer sports and enjoying the heat.
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So the change for you was just that you had to stop for a while?
I didn’t stop for a minute. I just adapted to the situation and adjusted my plan.
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So where did you spend the emergency?
In Prague. I didn’t leave the apartment for sixteen days. Immediately after returning from trips to races in Italy and training in Switzerland and Austria, I was in preventive health isolation, and when the situation began to improve, I received permission to ski in the Czech Republic. But I’ve been used to isolation my whole life. When I return to Prague during the season, for example for Christmas, I can’t afford to go to the cinema, to shopping or to the Christmas markets, because I don’t know who’s gonna splash me. I have to be responsible. I live sports not only myself, but also a whole team of people who are directly dependent on my health.
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Did you at least have time to furnish and decorate your apartment?
Oh yes. I hung the pictures, learned which switch would turn on and off which light, finally straightened the cups and medals on the shelves and so on… I have lived in my apartment for seven years, but I spend so little time in it that I actually got used to it .
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In quarantine, you also tried to learn guitar songs under the guidance of your father Janek. How did you do it?
I used to play the piano, but my brother Jonas bought me an electric guitar five years ago, which I started playing. But then Bryan Adams signed it for me, and you know, it’s like it’s signed by a god, nobody can even touch it. So I hung it on the wall and stopped playing again. And so Jonah gave me another guitar, acoustics, for Christmas. A unique tool. And I play it for myself.
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This year she also wore a red jersey for the leading World Cup downhill racer.
Photo: SLCR
Janek came to me for coffee and heard that I was strumming at home. And since he found out I was a little far from the woods, he advised me on some of the guitar riffs. As a birthday, I got a tuner, a capo and I play… I don’t make much progress, because apart from sports, I don’t have a talent for the guitar, but I’m trying to learn something. I enjoy it.
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It’s funny when you say that you have no talent for sports…
So that’s not funny at all! It’s rather sad, I have to live with it… (Laughs) Ask anyone who really knows me. Now, for example, in tennis, I learned to collect a balloon from the ground with a racket. Such a simple elegant griff with which you can serve a tennis ball from the ground.
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When I decide to do something, I always learn something in the end.
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Coach (Tomas Bank) he showed it to me and I killed the tennis ball on the ground several times, instead of jumping on it slightly and I just deftly snapped it off and caught it. And Tomas just said, “Um, interesting.” With an intonation in the style of how it is even possible that this girl has two gold medals from the Olympics. Is something wrong? (smile) I have thousands of such examples. But do you know what my trick is?
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Show off.
When I decide to do something, I always learn something in the end. It takes a long time, but I’ll learn it. If you saw me on the court today, you know I’ve already picked up a tennis ball with the skill of a five-year-old girl, and in half a year or a year I won’t even look at the balloon and shoot it in my hand whenever I want.
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On the contrary, is there anything you would say you have a talent for?
I’m a world champion in improvisation. I will adapt to the situation immediately. From an early age, I had to deal with all sorts of pressures, such as whether it was normal to ski or snowboard, to nominate me for those races. I just always have a plan B, C and D and I go my own despite everything and everyone…
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If you have time, what are you guaranteed to rest with? Can you just lie down on the couch watching TV?
I don’t like free time, I require a regime, then I’m satisfied. But you know, I like to play Harry Potter calmly for one hundred and twenty-eight… And I also like to sleep for a long time. If the alarm clock doesn’t wake me up, that’s best. But in Austria I got up every day at 3.39! Uf…
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Why so bad soon? Actually still at night…
Because I train before they let go of the lifts and before the summer sun leans into the snow. I ride a scooter and enjoy the hard track. Despite the fact that I like peace of mind for training. When 72 teams arrive on the piste, I’m asleep again…
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What would your ideal day look like if it were completely without sports?
This would not be an ideal day.
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Thanks to its success, Ester Ledecká has become the face of several global companies.
Photo: Richard Mille – Renaud Corlouer
How about shopping for clothes? Do you like them, or are you more welcome when you have sponsored clothing and you don’t have to deal with it?
I hate shopping and I hate trying on clothes! That’s why I’m happy that I have sponsors and that they dress me from head to toe and I don’t have to deal with it at all. I found that the better my sports results, the better dressed. So I try and appreciate it a lot. Shopping is really a punishment for me.
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When you are abroad, would you like to go for a good meal in a famous restaurant?
I guess I’m still at that childhood, when food is just a waste of time for me… I like buffets or a chef who sees me at the door and already puts food on the table. I go after such restaurants.
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Do you ever cook?
Yes, ice cream. I got an ice cream maker from Santa.
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I don’t drink at all. I just don’t like it. And the celebrations? I put them off forever.
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What food do you like best?
People often like some food when they are little and then they have it left. For example, cocoa and homemade donuts from grandma. What you?
Also. It went in this order: ice cream, chocolate, parmesan, shrimp, avocado.
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Are you still a sworn abstainer, or have you already drunk a drop of alcohol to some success?
I don’t drink at all. I just don’t like it. And the celebrations? I put them off forever. I haven’t even celebrated the Junior World Championships yet… I don’t like it very much. I enjoy racing. Everything between the start and the finish is the biggest party.
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“I guess I’m still at that childhood, when food is just a waste of time for me… I like buffets or a chef who sees me at the door and already puts food on the table.”
Did you manage to catch up with all the rest at school during the quarantine?
I did a state exam last year, but I’m still studying. I have an individual study plan that accepts my workload and, most importantly, that I am still on the road. Thanks to that, I’m actually chasing it. I have now handed over some seminars, passed two exams and is slowly getting ready to write my diploma.
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Is studying at the University of Finance and Administration useful in practical life so that you have an overview of finances and your earnings?
I had an overview of my finances long before I started college. The gradually expanding team that I have to pay forces me to constantly check how I actually stand and how deftly I balance between income and expenses. Of course, I also employ tax advisors, accountants, lawyers. Dělá I do school mainly to clear my head and think about something other than being on skis or snowboarding at the finish line first of all.
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I can lose. That was the first thing I learned. I have a lot of experience in this.
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You often mention that you are still racing. Even in the first one to climb the stairs. Have you had this competitiveness in you since you were a child?
How did you endure defeats? Were you the type to have to race again until he won?
You know, I’m not very talented, but I really enjoy learning new things, new sports and improving in them, despite all the obstacles and the words that I can’t do it and that it’s not possible. I can lose. That was the first thing I learned. I have a lot of experience in this. But I can also win and not go crazy about it.
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Do you enjoy all sports, or just the more action-packed ones? Tomáš Bank attracted you to golf as a passionate player…
Golf is such a game for handy lazy people. (smile) I like sports where there is at least a little aerobic load, such as tennis. I love beach volleyball, this is a good game. I enjoy it somewhere, but nothing compares to rushing down a hill with a hundred and thirty. This is a completely different type of adrenaline.
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Do you enjoy adrenaline off-piste? Are you attracted to roller coasters or bungee jumping?
Yes, both. And I would also like to pilot a fighter jet.
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What speed behind the wheel? Do you also like her and have you felt it in the fines?
Yes, I really enjoy it. And yes, she felt…
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You have always had men on your coaching team. Is it a coincidence, or is it easier for them to handle the year-round team?
This is due to the fact that I choose the best of the best for the team. And I just hold on to the boys.
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Ester Ledecké team: from left serviceman Miloš Machytka, coach Tomáš Bank, physiotherapist Michal Lešák and second coach Ondřej Bank.
Photo: SLCR
Especially with a serviceman and physiotherapist, you spend most of the year, do you have a recipe for avoiding submarine disease?
I have. Surround yourself with smart people with a sense of humor.
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Do you often diversify your time together with bets, as it was now in the winter with Tomáš Bank? When was the last time you lost a bet?
I only go to bet if I’m sure, so I don’t remember the last time I lost one.
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A total of 320,000 people follow you on social networks. Is there a personality that you watch with gusto?
There are many of them, but I do not follow them on social networks.
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You have communicated with fans much more in recent years. Did you start to enjoy it, or did you rather know that it is necessary nowadays?
During the last years? You made me laugh. All the experts who work on social networks curse me and tell me how to do it! But the fact is that now I felt sorry for the fans who could not play sports or cheer for sports, so I let them share all my ski and snowboard races from last season.
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Social networks can influence young people in particular. Do you feel a certain responsibility when you publish something on them?
I don’t experience social networks much. I am convinced that it is far more important for your work to be seen behind you than all the gallery gossip and fragrant misery…
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Another Olympic Games are on the agenda in Beijing in a year and a half. Have you already evaluated in the team whether the Olympics will be a forbidden word again, so that you do not put yourself and your team under pressure? That’s why Janek talked about the Pyongyang Games as a Korean friend…
The Olympics are still a forbidden word! It’s a long way off, but what about a “Chinese friend”? (laughter)
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