Halbergs winner eyes familiar slopes
Fresh from winning the emerging talent award at the Halbergs, Kiwi skier Alice Robinson is back on the slopes for the sixth round of the World Cup giant slalom in Slovenia.
The 18-year-old Kiwi is fifth in the standings heading into the race which has been moved from Maribor to Kransjka Gora in the west of the country due to a lack of snow.
“Maribor is a low elevation slope and doesn’t get much natural snow so we have moved to where I had my first World Cup race two years ago so it is exciting to be back.” Robinson said.
That’s significant because it’s a slope she knows well. All but one of Robinson’s races this season have been on hills she hadn’t skied on.
“It’s always hard coming into a race blind because you never really know what it’s going to ski like because you can look at it as much as you like but until you ski you are not sure what speeds are going to be or how much time you will have in certain sections. So to be on a hill I have skied before gives me confidence and I will get to free ski on it tomorrow which is great.”
Robinson finished fifth in her last giant slalom in Sestriere in Italy last month. She thinks the course in Kransjka Gora will suit her aggressive style.
“Yeah it’s quite technical, kind of starts out flat and rolling and then a deep pitch at the bottom so I think I will like it more than if it was in Maribor. It’s just a matter of putting two really good runs together and being fully confident that I can ski my best on race day,” she said.
It’s a huge next six weeks for Robinson whose focus is the giant slalom but she will also incorporate a couple of World Cup Super G races in a bid to make both disciplines for the World Cup finals in Cortina in Italy late next month.
“I’m feeling good and have come off a break after Sestriere for 10 days at the end of last month and then went to Garmisch Partenkirchen in Germany for a Super G. I had been skiing really well but unfortunately my ski popped off its binding which was unfortunate. But that happens so I am excited to get back into the GS and it’s a hectic six weeks now. I have a race every week until the end of the season.”
That DNF when she was skiing very fast on the upper section of the course has dented her chances of making the World Cup finals in that discipline, but it hasn’t dented her confidence.
“It’s not nice coming on to sheet ice skiing at 80km/h and then losing a ski and falling, smashing yourself and sliding 50 metres on ice,” she said. “But sometimes you can just be in the wrong position and be loaded at the wrong time. Especially because I was starting a bit later there was a little hole forming from all the people skiing and I just hit it with two much force and pushed the binding off. So I will just have to start using the men’s bindings.”
American superstar Mikaela Shiffrin who is second in the standings is no certainty to compete this weekend after her father Jeff passed away suddenly.
“I’m not sure, we will find out tomorrow but it’s really devastating when you think about something like that happening to someone when she is doing so well and I am sure they are in a lot of pain.”
Robinson, who has had a meteoric rise over the past 12 months, will have a good start position among the first seven racers to go tonight with the second run tomorrow.
That means she will enjoy the best of the snow conditions.
Italian Federica Brignone leads the giant slalom standings with 375 points with Shiffrin second on 314. Another Italian Marta Bassino is third with 254 points, just ahead of reigning world champion Slovakian Petra Vlhova on 253.
Robinson is on 200 made up of the stunning win in the season opening race in Austria (the youngest skier to win a World Cup race) a 10th, a ninth and a fifth in her last race in Sestriere. With 100 points for a race win, the title is not out of the question for Robinson who has races in Ofterschwang in Germany and Are in Sweden to come before the World Cup finals in Cortina d’Amprezzo in Italy.