Kranjska Gora, Slovenia (15 February 2020) – Just two days after winning the Sky Sport Emerging Talent Award at the 57th ISPS Handa Halberg Awards, New Zealand Alpine ski racer Alice Robinson (Queenstown) has claimed the second World Cup win of her career. The eighteen-year-old skied to Giant Slalom victory in Slovenia.
Today’s Alpine Ski World Cup was scheduled to take place in Maribor but was moved to the Kranjska Gora resort due to the unfavourable weather forecast.
Fourth out of the start gate on run one, Alice laid down a blistering run which put her in to second place just 0.24s behind Petra Vlhova (SVK).
"First run I was really happy with my skiing. I just made a mistake onto the pitch, so I knew the speed was there and I just had to clean it up for the second run,” Alice said. “I just had a big mistake coming onto the pitch which probably cost me the lead for the first run, but I was still close to Petra so I knew if I just did the same thing hopefully it would be enough to gain that time.”
With the start order reversed for the top 30 for run two, Alice was second last to race.
“I was just thinking, you know what you’re doing, trust yourself and give it everything you’ve got,” she explained.
A blistering second run gave her the lead ahead of Slovenia’s Meta Hrovat and Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener who would finish their day in joint third place. Petra Vlhova was last to race but couldn’t match Alice’s pace and finished in second place, 0.34s behind the young Kiwi.
“It was amazing. The second run was definitely on the limit. I was just kind of pushing as much as I could and definitely had a couple fumbles but I kept the speed going, so yeah, I’m really happy,” said Alice.
Alice won the FIS Alpine World Cup Tour season opener in Soelden, Austria in October 2019 and has earned three top-10 finishes since then, including fifth in Sestriere, Italy in January. She went into today’s race with a World Cup Tour ranking of fifth for Giant Slalom.
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4 years ago