Speaking to the Herald late last night, Knight admitted they had few answers and would be going through absolutely everything with the Super G coming up on the same hill on Friday.
"Yeah, we're incredibly disappointed to tell you the truth. I mean, I thought we had prepared really well. It was always a bit of an unknown coming to China and never having been here before. But that was the same for everybody. Nobody had skied this hill either. Coming into this race, and just unfortunately, things didn't work out the way they should have, somewhere five seconds were lost and we are just trying to figure out how that happened and we don't have the answer yet," Knight lamented.
Robinson has at least three pairs of skis on any given race day. She uses a set for her warm-up, which apparently went well, but was unable to get purchase on her turns in the race runs.
Knight was loathed to make excuses because while the conditions are new, they're 'the same for everybody.' There would be a fair bit of analysis over the coming days.
"That's the kind of thing that we're still trying to figure out, debriefing, analysing video, looking at the girls who won, looking at what they were doing, when they were skiing positions, they were in and how their equipment was working and how Alice's equipment was working. And it's just one of those things that we have to try and figure out pretty quickly because we got Super G in three days-time."
Knight and Robinson's other coach American Jeff Fergus have years of experience having worked with some of the best in the business including American great Lindsay Vonn and they will be confident they can ensure Robinson's set up is right for the Super G.
The young Kiwi has had more success in the high-octane speed event this season than the more technical Giant Slalom with a best result of fourth in St Moritz in December before she contracted Covid. However, she also recorded a seventh and a ninth in Super G last month before heading to Beijing.
"Yeah, look, we honestly think we can do a pretty good job with the right line and Super G," Knight said.
"We only get one look at the course, one inspection and then we're off and she has done really well in the last three races and just small little bobbles here and there have cost her a 10th or two and, she's only been half a second out in every Super G this season. We're confident she can turn it around and she's handling today really well. She's looking for answers as well, like we all are. We have got some more time to figure it out and hopefully we can do that."
Still the disappointing Giant Slalom result will linger for a while. At 17 Robinson stunned the alpine skiing world with her first World Cup victory in Solden in 2019. She had debuted the previous year at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics as a 16-year-old and four years on there was a sense of confidence Robinson would challenge for the podium in China.
"Yeah, it's a brutal sport. She won the last GS race of last season. She's in the best shape of her life. We had fantastic training in New Zealand. Everything's gone so well as far as preparing for everything we've had coming at us this year. And honestly, I don't want to make excuses because she has been doing personal bests with vertical jump and all sorts of different things that she's doing to do with her fitness regime and, and on snow and warm up against the best in the world she's still competitive, and it's just, we've just had a really tough time of it today in two runs on the GS track and we've got to try and put it all behind us enough refocus for the Super G," Knight said.
