Robinson started the season in electric form and is a serious medal prospect at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. Kayla Hodge tracks her down for a chat.
You cannot blame Alice Robinson for being pretty chuffed about her start to the season.
The Queenstown alpine skier has been flying down the slopes, starting with winning the Copper Mountain FIS giant slalom world cup race in November.
One week later, she won the Tremblant round in Canada, and she secured bronze in the second race the following day to snatch her 20th world cup medal.
She broke new ground in mid-December when she won her maiden super G world cup in St Moritz — marking the first appearance on a super G world cup podium by a New Zealand skier.
"It’s been incredible," Robinson told the Otago Daily Times.
"It’s been a pretty dream start to the season, so it’s pretty exciting."
Leading into Copper Mountain, Robinson said she was not feeling that great, but she was proud when she reflected on how well she pulled things together.
But her super G victory came as the biggest surprise — she had never finished higher than fourth previously — considering it was not her primary focus.
"I haven’t focused very much on super G this prep period ... so it’s kind of a secondary focus for me.
"To come out in the first race and get my first podium and win ... was a bit of a shock.
"I’m feeling really proud of myself also.
"I’ve been kind of chipping away at this discipline in the background for three or four years now and to finally see some of the experiences and the things that I’ve been working on, and learning, start to pay off in the race setting was a super proud moment."
Robinson acknowledged her first race of the season in Solden, Austria, did not go the way she hoped, and she was worried that could have a follow-on effect.
"I felt like I just kind of put my head down ... and I wasn’t actually feeling that confident going into Copper.
"But I just kind of trusted my own instincts, and my ability, and how I’ve been feeling, and the feeling that I was looking for and it went really well.
"I think it’s just been a bit of accumulation of a lot of work kind of coming out."
Skiing is like most other sports — you take the good with the bad.
For Robinson, that has meant following her spectacular start to the season with coping with back-to-back disappointments, crashing out in Semmering, Austria, just before the new year, and failing to finish again in Slovenia at the weekend.
The 24-year-old slipped to third in the giant slalom world cup standings and expressed her “frustration and disappointment" on social media.
"Didn’t have the right feels from the get-go," she said.
“This is how our sport rolls and I’ll use this fire for the next races going forward. We charge on.”
Robinson is a seasoned skier these days, having spent years on the circuit, and she is proud of the way her mindset has developed to push through the tough times.
"When I was younger, I struggled a lot with that, so it’s something I really wanted to prove to myself.
"I’m really happy that it’s worked. More so in this sport ... I think every week is so different, so it’s just kind of trying to adapt and, you know, always focusing on what’s coming up next."
Robinson has become the most successful alpine skier outside North America and Europe and while it was not something she thought about a lot — considering the majority of her competitors were American or European — it was still special.
"I think just because it was such a drive for me growing up to be competing against these big powerhouse nations.
"I always wanted to prove that you didn’t have to be from Europe or North America to do well in ski racing.
"To kind of see that I’m the one who pushed it further makes me really proud."
Apart from the past couple of events, you really could not ask for any better form heading into the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina next month.
Robinson has been selected for her third Winter Olympics, having competed in Pyeongchang (2018) and Beijing (2022).
"I can’t believe it’s already my third.
"I was thinking back to Korea, my first Olympics when I was 16, and found out I was going two weeks before and was so green.
"Now I’m kind of coming into an Olympics as a medal contender. It’s incredible to be going to an Olympics in that position."
Beijing was hard for Robinson, getting Covid leading up and not producing great results, so she was focused on heading to Milano Cortina in a good position.
Having two Olympics under her belt had to be seen as an advantage and racing at Milano Cortina — a place she was familiar with, having raced there every year — and not staying in the Olympic village would help.
"I think it’s going to feel just a bit more like a standard race than the previous Olympics.
"But I think having that experience of dealing with the extra media, the extra noise and expectations around the Olympics, hopefully I can also put those experiences to use next time."
— Swiss skier Camille Rast completed a world cup double and ended American great Mikaela Shiffrin’s season-long winning streak in slalom with victory in the Slovenian resort of Kranjska Gora yesterday.
The win, by 0.14sec over the two legs, denied Shiffrin a sixth slalom success in six races this season and followed Rast’s giant slalom victory on the same slope on Sunday.
Shiffrin, who also won the last slalom of the 2024-25 season, stayed top of the slalom and overall standings with reigning slalom world champion Rast moving up to second in both.
