Ester Ledecká’s Hectic Day: Completing Master’s Degree and Receiving Athlete Award

First, she successfully completed her master’s degree at the University of Finance and Administration in Prague, where she focused on marketing communication, then at the headquarters of the Czech Olympic Committee she received – for the second time in her career – the Jiří Guth-Jarkovský Award, awarded by the athletes themselves for the most valuable performance of the past year.

With distance, she could thus symbolically close the year 2022. But Ledecká emphasized that she is focusing on the future rather than on history.

“When I received the invitation to the event, I honestly had no idea that it was from last year. I thought to myself: What is this year for? I went to two races, which is quite a lot,” said Ledecká, who had a big health problems and practically missed it entirely. “I don’t see the past that much anymore, after all, I look forward,” said the 28-year-old athlete.

The last days and weeks have been difficult for Ledecká. In addition to training for the next season, she also tried to devote herself to her studies.

“I didn’t have much time to study now. We had preparatory camps in Italy and Austria, which was challenging. I only had a class and a half every day. In addition, you are tired (after training) and it doesn’t get too much in your head,” she admitted.

Nevertheless, she did well in school. First, she got a one in the state paper in economics, today she got three more ones.

“I have to brag, I’m a first grader. A nerd,” smiled Ledecká, for whom studying economics was the most challenging. “It was more difficult to learn because I didn’t attend a single lecture. I learned from textbooks and the Internet. With the other subjects, which were psychology, sociology and marketing, there were more questions,” she said.

Like a number of students, she threw herself into her thesis at the end of school.

“I thought that I would write it continuously for a whole year, but in the end I devoted myself to it for about a month. It was quite rushed. But before that, I had summed up in my head how I wanted it done, what I wanted, what I didn’t want. Then I just threw on paper,” said Ledecká.

Today’s exams are not the end of studies for the daughter of musician Janek Ledecky. In the future she would like to do a doctorate, now she wants to focus on education in physics, which she enjoys.

“Now I want to study more for myself, what I enjoy. No school, maybe take physics courses that I enjoyed. I rather want to learn new things from fields that attract me,” she admitted.

But he will return to sports in the next few days. “Now I still have four to five days on the glacier in Italy, after which we are going to Lefkada, as always, where I will do summer training. Physiotherapists will come to see me there and we will work hard. We need to get in shape for the season,” planned Ledecká. As in the past, he is going to train in Chile at the end of the holidays.