New Zealand skier Alice Robinson experienced a lot of disappointment in her first race back after being knocked out by Covid-19.

The 20-year-old, who has three World Cup victories in the giant slalom, failed to finish her second run in her last race in Lienz, Austria.

Robinson is on her way to take over the lead from Italian Federica Brignone, with only four skiers left, but only three of the finish line crossed the gate and ended her run prematurely.

Veteran Frenchwoman Tessa Worley won the race with a total time of 2 min03.88 seconds. She was 0.30 seconds faster than former world champion Petra Vlhova, who won second place and Sweden’s Sara Hector third.

Robinson started with seventh player and achieved the fifth fastest time in the opening run; recovering from a mistake early to reach the fifth fastest time in the third part of the course. She was well placed, just 0.45 seconds from the pace set by Worley.

Young Kiwi was the fastest in training during the week when she returned to the ski resort after a forced absence.

Before Christmas, Robinson missed the World Cup giant slaloms in Courchevel, France, and the Super G World Cup race in Val d’lsere, which followed a few days after the best fourth place of his career in the discipline at St Moritz.

Covid-19 has wreaked havoc in the Women’s World Cup season so far, with Robinson being joined by some of the biggest names in the sport affected by the virus.

U.S. double Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin was positive and missed the morning race, while Swiss star Lara Gut Behrami has now missed the last four World Cup races she had to compete in.

Robinson slipped eight places in the GS rankings to 32nd place, having competed in only two of the four races so far, and next going to Maribor in Slovenia for the World Cup giant slalom on 8 January.