Skiing: Alice Robinson gets the best result of her career at the Super G World Cup in Switzerland
Alice Robinson stormed through the slalom course to a career best in the third World Cup Super G. Video / Eurosport UK
New Zealand skier Alice Robinson has truly announced herself as a force in speed skiing.
The 20-year-old stormed to the best fourth place of his career in the third World Cup Super-G of the season in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Robinson flew down a shortened course after strong winds delayed the scheduled take-off time by 40 minutes.
The last minute change resulted in an early carnage as the course was battered in high winds and some of the early starters failed to finish.
The biggest victim was the Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami, the reigning world champion and winner of the first Super-G 24 hours earlier. She suffered a horrific accident at high speed and plowed through two safety nets. After the race was interrupted for several minutes, she was able to ski to the finish line unharmed.
But conditions on the hill improved slightly for Robinson, who had finished 24th the day before. She started from 26th place and put in a dazzling run with 58.33 seconds, only 0.53 seconds behind the winner Federica Brignone from Italy. Robinson was 0.12 seconds behind the American Mikaela Shiffrin in third place, who crossed the finish line behind another Italian Elena Curtoni.
“Yeah, it was super exciting,” Robinson told NZME. “The start was lowered because of the wind, so a kind of sprint. And it was super fast, it’s a really difficult slope and yesterday was my first day on it. So today I knew a little better.”
“I was a lot more confident and went all over the terrain. I felt like I had a really solid run, especially at the front. So it’s just amazing to be in the top five so I’m showing that I am a real contender in multiple disciplines. “
Robinson hit a top speed of 97.18 km / h and the best result of her career for the young Kiwi will do wonders for her confidence.
“Fourth place is my best result and part of that is super excited about fourth, but … another part of me is that I missed the podium by nine hundredths. So next week I’ll just focus on that Keeping the confidence rolling and getting the same feelings next week and trying to show that I can do it more than once, “Robinson said.
“Simply an absolutely fantastic result for Alice, the second time on the hill and the first time with a bit of experience and she is capable of that,” said Robinson’s assistant coach Chris Knight. “With all the race holds, the lowered start and the wind, she stayed focused, stuck to the plan and drove fantastic. Hopefully there will be a lot more results like this to come.”
This is all the more remarkable when you consider that the Queenstown skier has only started nine World Cup Super G races in her short career and her best result so far last season was 10th in Val Di Fassa.
Robinson, who finished 20th in Lake Louise last week, will climb from 21st to 10th place in the World Cup Super-G classification at the next race in Val D’lsere, France, next weekend.
Robinson has previously made a name for herself as a giant slalom skier with three World Cup victories in this discipline and is her best chance for a medal at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing in February. But her progress on Super G skis could also be another chance for a medal in Beijing.
After the upcoming Val d’lsere Super G, Robinson will turn her attention to the giant slalom with successive races in Courchevel, France before Christmas.
Robinson finished eleventh in the opening World Cup giant slalom of the season in Sölden, Austria at the end of October.
It is the first season in which Robinson competes in every World Cup Super-G as well as giant slalom and hopes to start her downhill career in the new year.