Los Angeles (AFP)
She put that back! After an unexpected gold medal at the Pyeongchang Olympics G-2018, snowboard specialist Ester Ledecka won the Lake Louise descent on Friday, the first victory of her career in the World Cup. .
Ledecka, the 26th rider, edged Switzerland's Corinne Suter, who for a long time thought she would also make her first win in the competition, and Austria's Stephanie Venier, who were relegated to 35 / 100th and 45 / 100th respectively.
American Mikaela Shiffrin, a non-specialist in this speed event, nevertheless took part in this first run of the season and finished an honorable 10th place.
Untouchable on the technical events, the slalom winner Levi (Finland) and Killingon (Vermont), where she joined the Austrian Annemarie Moser-Pröll with 62 World Cup victories, accentuates her dominance in the general classification (366 points) in front of the Swiss Michelle Gisin (160), 19th of this descent, and the Slovak Petra Vlhova (138).
But the star of the day in Alberta, where the snow has delayed one hour the first of two planned runs Friday and Saturday, was indeed Ester Ledecka.
The 24-year-old Czech, who had never finished better than 17th in the World Cup event, already downhill in Lake Louise in 2017, was imperial, confirming that her 5th and 8th place went unnoticed at the training sessions. to see a good performance from him.
The success of the event against veteran competitors such as Austria's Nicole Schmidhofer, winner of two Lake Louise races last year but 7th only on Friday, is a reminder of the super-G win at the 2018 Olympics.
In Pyeongchang, South Korea, she then became the parallel giant of snowboarding, her specialty, becoming the first skier in history, men and women alike, to win gold at the same Games in two disciplines requiring different equipment (skis and board).
With this victory, Ledecka is at the doors of the top 10 overall, just behind the French Tessa Worley, and Saturday will be the skier to follow in the second downhill weekend program.
At the tricolor beam, Romane Miradoli was the only one to garner some points with her 16th place.
© 2019 AFP