Alice Robinson is feeling “relaxed" and "calm” ahead of her second shot at Olympic glory in the giant slalom event this evening, according to her coach.
Nils Coberger said Robinson skied well in her final two-hour training run and has received physio treatment in the lead up to her race on the Olympia delle Tofane slope in Cortina.
Weather conditions are expected to be overcast, but Coberger hopes a temperature drop will lead to firmer ice than the challenging soft snow conditions athletes struggled with in the Super G event on Thursday evening.
“It’s the nature of our sport, you can do all the preparation... but if the weather gods don’t play their part, then you just have to contend with that – nothing you can do about it,” he said.
Robinson finished eighth in the fast-paced Super G event, a discipline she holds a second World Cup ranking this season.
In the giant slalom, the 24-year-old's had two World Cup victories this season, the last was two months ago in Canada. She’s in fifth place in the World Cup rankings.
Coberger says Robinson has grown as a person and athlete since the 2022 Winter Olympics, when she finished 22nd in giant slalom, 25th in downhill and did not finish the Super G event.
"Her mindset, she's not trying to push as hard, she understands when to use tactics, she's a wiser, older skier than she was four years ago."
After his name was drawn out of a hat in the last World Cup among the top 15 athletes, he's set the course for the first of two runs in the race.
"Soon as we hit the flat, because of the length, I made it quite straight and not too many turns because otherwise you put everyone in the tank and we've had a long week...
"It's still a normal giant slalom course but I've definitely gone easy on them at the bottom... it just feels better as an athlete when you're skiing at high speed."
Coberger said one his rules with skiing is it has to be fun for competitors.
"They have to enjoy it – I don't set difficult courses or tricky courses or courses that catch people out."
Part of the preparation for Alice's third Olympics has been aerodynamic drag testing with High Performance Sport New Zealand's Innovation team.
Robinson held tuck, half tuck and standing positions as part of an experiment in Auckland University's wind tunnel.
“It is sometimes quite alarming how some small differences can make a several percentage difference in aerodynamic drag," HPSNZ Head of Innovation Simon Briscoe told 1News.
Briscoe said unlike some sports in controlled environments, on the mountain it can be challenging to record an athlete's performance for review.
“Because you don’t have any feedback, you don’t have any information on the drag that you’re creating aerodynamically. It’s not something that gets typically factored in.”
He said the findings provided an insight for Robinson and her team in the lead up to Milano Cortina 2026.
“Athletes do tuck as they’re going down a run but I don’t think it’s well enough understood you know how big the benefits are of being able to get into that tuck."
In a sport like ski racing, every fraction of a section counts in the pursuit of a podium finish.
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