Kiwi teen rockets through ski rankings
A teenage New Zealand skier is raising knowledgeable eyebrows with the speed of her development.
New Zealand has just one Winter Olympic medallist, Annelise Coberger, who stunned the ski world by winning the silver medal in the slalom at the Albertville Games in France in 1992.
Now Alice Robinson, just 15 and already the dual national slalom and giant slalom champion, is hinting that a special talent is on the ski horizon, after just 10 days of competitive racing.
She has just graduated to become an FIS- registered athlete. There could be a trip to February’s Winter Olympics in South Korea. When the next FIS international rankings come out, she will be around No 125 in the GS, her better event.
“Very few women athletes have achieved what she has in that short period of time,” Snow Sports New Zealand high performance boss Ashley Light said.
“There aren’t many worldwide who have rocketed through the rankings as quickly as Alice has.”
She has three coaches — former international racers Ben Griffin and Tim Cafe and head coach Nils Coberger — and has just spent time training with illustrious skiers including Americans Lindsay Vonn and Mikaela Schiffrin, who between them have won five world championship golds and two Olympic victories across slalom downhill and super G.
New Zealand champions are the first finishing New Zealander at the nationals, which is not necessarily the fastest skier down the course. However Robinson was chuffed to have won, in every sense, the GS title at Coronet Peak last week, and her third placing in the slalom gave her the double.
“That was pretty cool,” Robinson, the Wakatipu High School pupil said of the GS win. “I was pretty excited because that was my first big race on my home hill.”
She prefers the GS for the perfectly logical reason that “I’m just a bit better at it”.
Robinson, studying for her NCEA this year, was born in Sydney but moved with her family to Queens- town at three, which is when she first stepped on skis. A duck to water? You bet.
“I think I was always pretty much into it. Both my parents really enjoyed skiiing.”
Blending studies with skiing can be challenging, but she has a supportive school and figures she can make up work in her down periods, but they are likely to get fewer if her development continues apace.
Nils Coberger, brother of Annelise and longtime national coach, is hugely enthusiastic about Robinson’s progress. But don’t be fooled this is a natural for whom it all comes easily.
“I have worked pretty hard,” she said. “But I guess I’ve got quite lucky. I have some good natural ability but you definitely still have to work really hard.”
Robinson has ambition. She wants to go to the Olympics and ski the other top level international events.
She will compete at ANC races at Thredbo in Australia next week, then there’s the Winter Games in Queenstown and super G races at Mount Hutt.
Light pointed out Thredbo will be another step in her development, the first time she’s raced overseas, with World Cups beckoning further afield later this year. He is cautious on next year’s Olympics.
“Theoretically she could qualify for Korea but she’s just qualified to race open senior international competition.
“It would be a stretch to go to the Games, but it’s certainly not out of the realms of possibility.”
Sport is full of boom athletes in their mid- late teens who, for myriad reasons, just don’t kick on. That said, it’s hard to keep the enthusiasm out of Coberger’s voice.
“She’s incredibly talented, very strong mentally. That would be her greatest asset, mental clarity.
“A lot of athletes suffer from nerves or lack of performance through the mental stage, whether they’re putting or serving. But to date Alice has shown she thrives under pressure. It’s amazing.
“She’s very level headed and I think she has an illustrious career in front of her.
“There’s no guarantees but to date what she’s done i s phenomenal. She’s got all the tools.”
Alice Robinson