Alice Robinson leads the 2025 giant slalom standings ahead of the final showdown at Sun Valley, Idaho this week. Photo / Getty Images
Alice Robinson leads the 2025 giant slalom standings ahead of the final showdown at Sun Valley, Idaho this week. Photo / Getty Images
Angela Walker for LockerRoom
Alice Robinson is dominating the giant slalom circuit in Europe, where she’s now recognised on the streets. This week, the Queenstown skier will stake her claim as world No.1, Angela Walker writes.
Alice Robinson is slightly disoriented. It can’t be blamed on altitude, or the weight of the World Cup medals she’s hauled in this season.
When LockerRoom caught up with the Kiwi giant slalom star by video call last week, she had to think for a moment where in the world she was.
Sitting in front of a rustic timber wall wearing a cosy woollen jumper, she glanced around in search of clues, before it came to her.
“La Thuile in Aosta Valley, Italy,” she said with a grin.
Having lived in more than 20 different hotels in as many weeks, Robinson can be forgiven for not instantly knowing where she is.
Life on this season’s FIS Alpine Ski World Cup circuit has seen her compete in a multitude of locations since October – in Austria, the United States, Italy, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Norway and more.
While little is constant in her “nomadic lifestyle”, the same can’t be said about her incredibly consistent performances this Northern Hemisphere winter. Having now claimed seven consecutive World Cup podiums, Robinson leads the 2025 giant slalom standings ahead of the final showdown at Sun Valley, Idaho this week.
And a thrilling showdown it promises to be with Italian ski star and world champion Federica Brignone only 20 points behind Robinson on the points table. Whoever prevails in the World Cup finals will claim the coveted Crystal Globe.
“I think it’s cool that if I want to win the Globe, I really have to earn it and beat Federica fair and square in this last race,” Robinson says.
Robinson has now claimed seven consecutive World Cup podiums. Photo / Getty Images
The 23-year-old has become a recognisable sporting celebrity in Central Europe having risen to the top of such an iconic local sport.
“I’m more well-known in Austria than I am in New Zealand,” she confesses.
“It’s such a big sport there. Everyone watches ski racing on TV and at the pub. When they have the worlds, it’s the equivalent of New Zealand having the Rugby World Cup.
“We stay at random, off-the-beaten-track hotels and the owners are massive fans. And they come and sit with you and talk about ski racing, which is quite funny. I guess it’s people’s passion there.”
Robinson is enjoying her most successful season to date. She made history, winning New Zealand’s first ever FIS Alpine Ski World Championships medal – a silver in Saalbach, Austria last month – and won her first World Cup in four years, in Kronplatz, Italy in January. She’s barely been off the podium this season.
“Everything’s been going really well,” she says. “I feel like we’ve been ticking off our goals, so I’m feeling really happy. And I guess a little bit of relief too.”
Relief because she’s fulfilling the promise of her early years when she became New Zealand’s youngest-ever Winter Olympian, aged 16, in PyeongChang 2018 and won her first World Cup event at 17 years.
“Having so much success as a youngster and then having a bit of a lull was hard on the mind, feeling like you’re not living up to the expectations you put on yourself and from others.
“So it’s been really nice to finally see the results after years of building and trial and error to get to where we are now,” she says.
Robinson admits it was “probably inevitable” she needed time to evolve into a skier who could turn out top performances, anywhere, anytime.
“It’s a sport that requires a lot of consistency and adaptability,” she says. “It’s not like the 100m sprint where you’re running the same track every time. Our courses are completely different every weekend, and snow conditions change. There are so many variables.
“Getting to the level I’m at now, where I can be good across all the different slopes, takes time and wasn’t really taken into account when I had good results as a youngster.”
As a New Zealander, Robinson didn’t share the advantages often enjoyed by her European and North American counterparts.
How exactly has Robinson become a skier who can consistently end up on the podium week after week? Photo / Getty Images
“I didn’t come from the ski racing world. Prodigy skiing children often have parents who were champion ski racers or coaches.
“Or if you’re in the Italian team, you’ve got really experienced girls training alongside you who’ve been on the tour for 10 years, and you’re doing it in your backyard so everything is just a little bit less daunting,” she says.
“I didn’t have people around me that understood the sport; I had to figure a lot out by myself.”
So how exactly has Robinson become a skier who can consistently end up on the podium week after week?
“A lot of things have come into it,” she says.
“I switched equipment nearly three years ago. Equipment is really important in our sport; It’s like a Formula One car.
“You’re playing with setup, engineering, different skis and boots and you’ve got to trial and test which is a big process. It took me a year to find a setup that really worked.”
She changed coaches as well, teaming up with Tim Cafe and Nils Coberger (brother of 1992 Olympic slalom silver medallist Annelise Coberger). Robinson says her coaches have created a “healthy environment” where everyone’s voice is valued, and have been invaluable in helping her refine her technique.
“We got my basic body position and technique really solid, so it didn’t matter if I got into trouble on a course or made a mistake, I could recover really quickly. And they care about me as a person, not just as an athlete or as a professional,” she says.
Robinson’s accumulated international experience is another factor in her success.
“After five years on the World Cup, I’m familiar with the majority of tracks. I know when to push and when to back off. And I’ve matured a lot mentally as well.”
Ski racing is a “confidence game” that requires a certain kind of personality, Robinson explains.
“The actual fear of crashing or hurting myself – I don’t think about that much,” she says. “I’m not scared, but I am aware of the risks.
“The best athletes with longevity in the sport have been smart, knowing when to back off and give the course respect. Then there are others who are fast and have zero fear, but they’ve also had a lot of injuries as well.”
Much of Robinson’s hard-won wisdom was gained during the Covid years. She talked openly about her challenges at the time.
Five years since the pandemic began, she now looks back on the difficult period with the benefit of maturity and hindsight.
“I’m proud of how I handled it because I was an 18-year-old on the other side of the world just wandering around aimlessly trying to be the best in the world at something during a pandemic,” she says.
“The last Olympic year was definitely the hardest one because I got Covid and missed competitions and was struggling with my health the whole season. At the time, it felt like the worst thing in the world. Looking back, now I realise there were reasons I was struggling so much.
“You’ve just got to take all the experiences and add them to your toolbox to draw on. It’s put perspective over how tough things can really be.”
Robinson is grateful for the team that surrounds her, describing them as her “travelling family”. Along with “the boys” (coaches Coberger and Café), there’s her physiotherapist Alex Hull, who’s been her best friend since the pair started ski racing together at the age of eight.
“Alex did her knee twice before she turned 17,” Robinson explains.
“She decided to stop ski racing and go to physio school. But we were like, ‘It’s OK, you go to physio school, then you’re going to be my physio and we’ll travel around the World Cup together.’ And it’s happened!
“It’s made such a big difference to me. Sport can be so lonely. But I’ve got people around me that I trust completely.”
Rounding out the support team is serviceman Michi Haas, from Austria.
“He is very important,” Robinson says.
“We don’t really talk about him enough, but he’s up all hours of the night, tuning my skis, making them fast. Your relationship with your serviceman is so important; you have to trust them 100%.
“When I go out at the start, I have to trust my skis are going to hold when it’s icy or be fast in different snow conditions.”
Through all the highs and lows, Robinson remains a down-to-earth Kiwi from Queenstown – her humility, authenticity, openness and warmth shining through.
She plans to return to New Zealand once the European racing season concludes and she’s completed her equipment testing phase, to try out new models and make any changes ahead of next season.
At the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina next year, Robinson hopes to make it third time lucky. And she plans to approach the Games a little differently to the past two she’s contested.
Robinson hopes to make it third time lucky at the next Winter Olympics. Photo / Getty Images
“The Olympics are just another race,” she says. “I’m not going to treat it any differently to any other. I’m not going to put expectations on myself.
“Of course, one of my goals is to win an Olympic medal, but to actually achieve that I just have to do everything the same as I’ve been doing.
“I want to be in Cortina knowing I’ve got the potential to win a medal, knowing I’ve left no stone unturned, but not put any pressure on myself and just do my best on the day.”
It’s an approach that worked for her at the recent world championships. And it’s how she’ll tackle Wednesday’s giant slalom World Cup final when she drops in wearing the red (leader) bib.
“I don’t feel that much pressure,” she says. “Either I beat Federica or I get second in the standings. I don’t really have anything to lose.”
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.
