ENGADIN, Switzerland — Ester Ledecka added another trophy to her collection of silverware to reclaim her place atop the snowboard world with a commanding victory in the women’s parallel giant slalom at the 2025 Snowboard World Championships in Engadin, Switzerland.
The three-time Olympic champion, known for her unprecedented success in both alpine skiing and snowboarding, secured her first snowboard world title in eight years, defeating defending champion Miki Tsubaki of Japan in the final.
It was Ledecka’s first snowboard world title in eight years. The versatile Czech athlete already had two golds and a silver from parallel giant slalom races at the snowboarding worlds in 2015 and 2017. “It´s awesome,” Ledecka said according to AP.
“I haven´t competed in a world championship since (2017) because it was difficult with timing because of skiing events,” Ledecka added.
Ledecka, who won bronze in the Downhill at the Alpine Skiing World Championships in February, dominated throughout the event. She topped the qualification runs with an incredible lead of 3.29 seconds on Tsubaki and cruised through the knockout rounds before taking down Tsubaki for her third World Championship title and second Parallel Giant Slalom title. She defeated the Japanese in the Big Final with a lead of 0.48 seconds
Aleksandra Krol-Walas of Poland won the bronze medal race over Ladina Caviezel of Switzerland.
Ledecka famously won Olympic gold in skiing´s super-G and snowboarding´s parallel GS at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, and added another gold on her board in 2022 in Beijing.
A scheduling issue at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics – where the parallel GS in snowboarding and the Alpine downhill are both set for Feb. 8 at venues hours apart – might deny her a chance to replicate that achievement from 2018.
Roland Fischnaller of Italy, who is 44, won the men’s title by defeating Stefan Baumeister of Germany in the final. Lee Sang-ho won the bronze medal.
Elsewhere, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, New Zealand’s golden girl of snow sport, is on top of the world again – being crowned FIS Slopestyle World Champion in Corvatsch, Switzerland.
The 24-year-old snowboarder claimed her record-breaking third slopestyle world title with a thrilling final run. Sadowski-Synnott had been sitting sixth with one run remaining.
Just as she did in winning Olympic gold at Beijing in 2022, Sadowski-Synnott was the final athlete to drop into the course.
She left her best until last, stomping one of her trademark technical runs, leapfrogging into the top spot with the only score of the competition in the 90s.
“That was crazy, I messed up my first run and put so much pressure on myself coming into the last run, all the girls were riding so good, and I was stoked to watch everyone’s runs,” Sadowski-Synnott said.
“It just vibed me up to land that run. I have never done that [run combination] in contest before so I am super stoked!” added Sadowski-Synnott.
In the Freeski Slopestyle World Championships finals, Kiwis Ruby Star Andrews and Luca Harrington both secured career-best Slopestyle World Championships results, finishing in fifth and sixth respectively. Teammate Ben Barclay finished in 16th place.
