Historic silver medal for Robinson

Queenstown's Alice Robinson has made history overnight, securing New Zealand’s first-ever FIS Alpine Ski Racing World Championships medal with a silver in Giant Slalom.

The 23-year-old was thrilled with her performance. “It’s amazing, my first World Champs medal, it’s so special…I just really wanted to go for it today, I just tried to treat today like any other race and I am really happy to have executed.”

Robinson entered today’s World Championships as one of the favourites, off the back of a victory at the last Giant Slalom World Cup race in Kronplatz and as the current leader of the Giant Slalom World Cup standings for the 2025 season.

The weather was clear and the temperature was rising, resulting in variable, spring-like snow conditions.

“I was a bit worried today because these conditions, I usually struggle with the spring snow a bit, so I am really proud of myself.”

In bib 5, Robinson made the most of the more favourable snow conditions earlier in the day and put down a blistering first run. She was quick out the start gate and read the terrain well, quickly settling into her rhythm as she made her way down the physically demanding course.

Federica Brignone of Italy set the fastest first run time, with Robinson just +0.67 behind her and the only athlete to come within a second of the Italian’s superb first run time.

“Today I was always wanting to go for the top position and 0.67, that’s not bad but it’s not super close either … we do have another run, Federica is the master in these spring conditions, she’s so good, so I am going to need to clean it up and do something special on the second run,” Robinson says.

The second-to-last athlete out of the start gate for run two, Robinson flew down the course skiing dynamically and gaining speed and advantage at every interval, taking the race lead by -1.72 with just Brignone left to ski.

“In the second run I just tried to go for it and not think too much, and honestly, it didn’t feel good – It was rough and I think I was pushing it so much that I felt a bit out of control so I didn’t know if it was fast or not…When I saw the green light I thought maybe it was good enough for gold but Federica was amazing today.”

Brignone took the gold medal by -0.90, marking the first time an Italian woman has won the Giant Slalom World Championships in 28 years. Robinson finished in second, claiming both her own and New Zealand’s first-ever Alpine Ski World Championships medal with the USA’s Paula Moltzan rounding out the podium in third, claiming her first-ever individual Alpine World Championships medal.

Robinson’s previous best FIS Alpine World Championships result was a fourth place finish at the 2021 World Championships in Italy. New Zealand’s previous best results were fourth place finishes from both Robinson in 2021 and Claudia Riegler in slalom at the 1996 World Championships held in Spain.