• Snowboarding, Alpine skiing
• Date of birth: 23 March 1995
• Place of birth: Prague
• Facebook: esterledecka.cz
• Instagram: esterledecka

In 2013, she won the FIS Snowboarding Junior World Championship in both parallel slalom and parallel giant slalom and decided to become a professional skier and snowboarder. She devised a meticulous plan and stuck to it despite everyone who tried to dissuade her. 

She is a veritable snowboarding superstar. She won four consecutive FIS World Cup Crystal Globes, a feat that had never been achieved by any snowboarder before, and she also won three small crystal globes for winning the parallel slalom overall standing. Her achievements are all the more impressive because her schedule (combining alpine skiing and snowboarding) does not allow her to compete in all World Cup races.

She won her first FIS Snowboard World Cup race in January 2014 in Rogla, Slovenia. Since then, her star has been rising. In 2015 she became World Snowboard Champion, and at the following World Championship she won another gold medal and also a silver.

In 2016, she started competing in both the FIS Snowboard World Cup and the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup. In her first season in the Alpine Ski World Cup she managed to get into the top 30 in three disciplines: the downhill, the super-G and the super combined.

In the 2019–20 season, Ester ranked in the top places of the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup standings for the first time: in December 2019, she won the downhill at Lake Louise, in February 2020 she placed third in the same discipline in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, adding a bronze medal from the alpine combined in Crans-Montana later the same month.
She is second in the overall standing of the Alpine Ski World Cup downhill discipline and third in the super combined.
She is a world class athlete in both snowboarding and alpine skiing. She can boast 19 wins in the World Cup and seven crystal globes.

Ester has won many awards for her outstanding performances. She was named the best athlete of the 2008–2018 decade and 2018 Sportsperson of the Year of the Czech Republic – with an amount of points awarded that no previous winner of the title had claimed in the sixty years’s history of the poll. She has also been named the Queen of the White Trail several times in a row. She has been nominated for numerous awards, including European sportsperson of the year and world sportsperson of the year. In 2017 she won the International Matteo Baumgarten Award for athletes who successfully combine sports career with university studies. She is an honorary citizen of Prague 1, holder of the ceremonial key to the city of Prague and holder of the Czech Medal of Merit awarded by the president of the Czech Republic. She can also boast the Superbrands Award which recognises the best trademarks in the world.

Interesting facts:

Ester’s grandfather is the ice hockey forward Jan Klapáč, 1972 World Champion and winner of two Olympic medals (bronze in 1964 and silver in 1968).

Ester’s grandfather is the ice hockey forward Jan Klapáč, 1972 World Champion and winner of two Olympic medals (bronze in 1964 and silver in 1968).

Her mother Zuzana, a former figure skater, serves as the head coach of the All STR TEAM and is responsible for Ester’s preparation for training sessions and races.

Her father, Janek Ledecký, is a famous Czech pop singer and world-renowned composer. His musical Hamlet – The Rock Opera has been performed in South Korea in five different stage productions in the last decade and has been played to more than 1,300,000 audience members worldwide.

Her brother Jonáš left the national junior snowboard team to pursue a career in the visual arts and music. He is a respected graphic novel illustrator, responsible for Ester’s superhero-style identity, and has designed her racing suit and snowboard.

The first race Ester competed in, aged 5, was one of a series of ski races called the Milca Cup. She won the race.

She is coached by the brothers Tomáš and Ondřej Bank (alpine skiing) and Justin Reiter (snowboarding). Her team further includes Michal Lešák (physiotherapy), Miloš Machytka (equipment manager) and Jan Klapáč (fitness coach).