Queenstown ski racer Alice Robinson, competing at her third Winter Olympics, finished eighth of 76 in the giant slalom (GS) overnight on Sunday — just 0.18 seconds away from a medal.
Late on Thursday night, Robinson, 24, also finished eighth of 43 in the super-G — a race in which 17 women recorded ‘DNF’, or did not finish.
They are her best Olympic finishes to date.
Speaking after the end of her Milano Cortina campaign, Robinson told Sky Sport she’d been ‘‘in a bit of a hole’’ in her favoured GS event prior to the Olympics.
‘‘I just felt like I couldn’t ski it any more, I just felt so dead.
‘‘So for me to be able to come out here ... on the biggest race of the year, with all that doubt and bad lead-up, and to be able to put down two runs that were nearly a medal was, I guess, a really good result for me.
‘‘I still know I could have skied better, but the confidence still wasn’t, I think, where it needed to be to be really pushing the limits completely.
‘‘So I know I could have been in there, but with what I had ... I think I did a good job.’’
The good news is, she still has time on her side.
The winner of the GS was Italy’s Federica Brignone — she also won the super-G — who’s 36.
‘‘I was like, I definitely have to keep ski racing for another four years now,’’ Robinson laughed.
The future’s also bright for Queenstown freeskier Ruby Star Andrews, 21, who finished her first Olympic campaign on Sunday, placing 24th in the freeski big air — an event she wasn’t even sure she was going to compete in a couple of days out.
After dislocating her hip in Austria in November, Star Andrews had a race against the clock to prepare for the Olympics, and leading in to her last event she’d experienced a ‘‘pretty tough couple of days of practices’’, which had tested her mental resilience.
‘‘I just wanted to show up ... and give it everything and walk away being proud of myself and make my family proud and my country proud.
‘‘I was just feeling a lot of pressure and, like, the nerves and it was just so special to prove to myself that I could put it down when it mattered ... and whatever about the result; I’m just really happy to be skiing, and I’m really happy to be healthy.’’
Meantime Hawai’i-based Arrowtown Olympian Lyon Farrell, 27, finished 15th out of 30 in the men’s snowboard slopestyle qualifier, missing the finals, following a top-10 finish in the snowboard big air.
