For the first time in a long time, Alice Robinson has her mojo back.
The 21-year-old returned to the podium for the first time in more than two and a half years when she won silver at the FIS Giant Slalom World Cup held in Vermont, in the US.
"I had a little celebration," Robinson said, "but I think my team celebrated a bit harder than I did!"
The result is proof for Robinson that she's heading in the right direction after parting with long-time coach Chris Knight earlier this year.
"I think it actually was kind of for the best. My old coaches wanted to do other stuff and we'd been together for a long time, so it was like a natural split," she said.
Robinson chose to team up with familiar faces.
In the last seven months, elite Kiwi ski coach Nils Coberger — whose sister is New Zealand's first Winter Olympics medallist, Annalise Coberger — and 2010 Winter Olympian Tim Café have joined "Team Alice". It’s a full circle moment for them as they’ve known Robinson from the beginning.
"It's been really great. They’re like my two stand-in dads, I suppose," she said.
"I’ve been working with Tim since I was 10 years old — he coached me at my first Olympic Games and Nils has always been the boys' coach.
"It's a bit of a full circle moment but it feels good to be back with the OGs."
Café said the pair believe she "could always go on for greatness".
"More than anything, it's a bit of affirmation that what we're doing is working," he said.
"The plan is obviously working so we need to stick to it, but what are the little things we can do better?"
Confidence is a big area where they are looking for Robinson to improve, following years of missed results and crashing out of the Beijing Olympic Games.
"It was definitely the hardest time of my life," Robinson said.
"I was so unhappy and just felt like I had failed so badly. I was not in a very good place.
"There was so much going on outside of skiing with Covid, and then my actual health and getting Covid a couple times. That whole Olympic year was probably the hardest year of my life."
Coberger has been drawing on his past experiences with the All Blacks and former manager Darren Shand on how to best coach Robinson.
"The All Blacks environment is second to none in professional sporting teams," Coberger said.
"Little things that were picked up with Darren and the All Blacks and being in that environment we can apply, and they are successful without doubt."
The Queenstown skier returns to the world cup circuit this weekend, where she'll be competing at the Tremblant World Cup.
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