Alice Robinson arrived in Europe on August 22 last year, 191 days ago, to start preparing for this moment.
Tomorrow night she will compete in the Giant Slalom at the World Alpine Skiing Championships in Cortina in Italy, the pinnacle of her season and the chance to become the first New Zealander to win an Alpine World Championship medal.
"I have had a really good build-up to this," Robinson told the Herald.
"I have chosen not to do some other events to really focus on this Giant Slalom and am just hoping all the stars are going to align on the day. I just have to be really confident."
The 19-year-old had high hopes of winning the overall GS title heading into the World Cup season. That was based on her staggering success a year earlier where she won two of the six completed races in the season cut short by the Covid-19 outbreak.
But things haven't gone according to plan for the Kiwi teenager who is at least five years younger than most of her rivals. She sits 16th overall in the World Cup standings with two ninth-place finishes her best return, which for someone so young and inexperienced could be considered outstanding.
For Robinson, given her early meteoric rise, she feels she's underachieving.
There have been some compelling mitigating factors. Ordinarily, the Queenstown skier would see her family at least a couple of times during the season, either on a break back home or in Europe. Her parents were originally scheduled to travel to the World Championships. But New Zealand's closed borders due to Covid have put paid to that.
Homesickness, boredom at times, the stress caused by the difficulties of living and travelling in Covid-hit Europe, and the reality all her European based rivals can travel home after races are factors that have contributed in some way to her results.
However, Robinson has managed to put all the distractions aside to focus on this World Championship tilt.
The last World Cup race more than three weeks ago in Kronplatz in Italy saw Robinson finish ninth but she started showing signs of a return to her form of last season. She set a scorching pace on the top half of the course, but a couple of mistakes cost her time. After the two runs she was just 1.52 seconds off race winner Tessa Worley of France.
Everything has been geared towards peaking at Cortina. After the Alpine Combined was postponed and Super G delayed due to fog last week, Robinson pulled out of her second discipline (Super G) to concentrate on preparing for the GS away from the World Championship spotlight.
Her Kiwi co-coach Chris Knight got in touch with the connections of Worley and the two spent a couple of days training together before heading back to Cortina.
While Worley posted the quicker times on the first day, Robinson was faster in every run on the second. The Frenchwoman is second in the World Cup GS standings and one of the favourites this week.
Matching it with one of the world's in-form ski racers has boosted Robinson's confidence.
"I know I can ski really well, obviously doing that with some good training against a really tough competitor is something I just have to bring on the race day," Robinson said.
The Giant Slalom is an exhilarating race where your times over two runs are added together. One mistake is punished, with the racers so close in performance you can drop from first to 10th with one bad turn, and worse you can miss a gate or crash and not finish, therefore missing the second run.
Robinson's style is aggressive, attacking the hill - a high-risk approach, prone to the odd error. But when she gets it right few of her rivals can match her.
Those rivals include Michaela Shiffrin, the American reigning Olympic champion in Giant Slalom who at the age of 19 won Olympic gold in Slalom.
Earlier this week she won her sixth world championship gold medal in the Alpine Combined. Reigning world champion Petra Vlhova of Slovakia is also a threat and although she hasn't been at her consistent best this season, is more than capable of peaking at the right time.
World Cup leader Marta Bassino has dominated the Giant Slalom discipline by winning four of the six races on the circuit and her compatriot Federica Brignone, Worley, and the Swiss duo of Michelle Gisin and Lara Gut-Behrami, the Super G gold medalist in Cortina, are all genuine medal contenders.
Robinson has made some adjustments to her training with particular emphasis on preparing for the type of course she is likely to face.
"I have done a lot of technical things, refining tactics and adjusting some things in my skiing which have been missing, and working on my flat sections. I haven't been on this GS course, but I think there is quite a big flat section, so I have been doing a lot of work at that and not trying to leave any stone unturned because we don't know what's going to be happening on the day."
She will be starting tomorrow night's first run in a bib number from eight to 15 and Knight thinks it's a good position to be in.
"It actually is good to start a little bit further back because you get a bit more time to watch the other athletes and see what line they are skiing on and whether you have to be a little bit more careful with your tactics," Knight said.
For Robinson it's been hard to get used to the Covid environment, racing each event without any fans and atmosphere.
"I've struggled a bit because normally I quite like the upbeat atmosphere where there's a lot of people and a lot of stuff going on and you compete in these races and you ski and that's about it.
"Normally the crowds amp me up on the race but we haven't had that, and I think it's weird coming to world champs with no real spectators, no opening ceremonies, and no big events. So, it doesn't quite feel like a World Championships because of the atmosphere."
Robinson's fellow Kiwi Piera Hudson will also be in the Giant Slalom field tomorrow night, her confidence boosted by a career-best 12th place finish in the Parallel Giant Slalom this week in Cortina.
The 25-year-old believes she's skiing as well as she ever has and is targeting a top result in her specialist slalom later in the week.
"[I'm] looking for top 10. I don't think I have ever been skiing as well as I am now and my plan with my coach was to peak for these world championships and that's exactly what we have done right, so I am confident."
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