She won too soon, then had to learn all over again how to come out on top. Seven years after her success on the Rettenbach, Alice Robinson returns to Sölden with a world medal, two runner-up finishes in the discipline standings and a victory in a speed event.
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Coronet Peak, then the world
She was born in Australia, but she learned to ski in Queenstown, on the slopes of Coronet Peak, from the age of four. New Zealand skiing is a small world. Its winters fall during the European summer, and its best athletes must cross the planet to race. Robinson did so very early. At 16, she was at the PyeongChang Games. At 17, she was world junior giant slalom champion.
Sölden, October 2019
On 26 October 2019, she won the season-opening giant slalom on the Rettenbach, ahead of Mikaela ShiffrinUSA. She was 17. Two more victories followed, in Kranjska Gora in 2020 and in Lenzerheide in 2021. Then nothing, for almost four years. She told Olympics.com she had found early success really hard. She changed her coaching set-up, returned to the podium and established herself.
The comeback, then silver
The next win came on 21 January 2025, at Kronplatz. Three weeks later, in Saalbach, she took giant slalom silver at the World Championships. It was the first world medal in the history of New Zealand alpine skiing. She finished the season second in the giant slalom standings. Looking back on that path, she says she has been through everything.
2026, the winter she broadened her game
The Olympic winter gathered pace in North America. Robinson won the giant slalom at Copper Mountain on 29 November 2025, then the one at Tremblant a week later. On 14 December, in St. Moritz, she took the super-G, her first victory in a speed event. The downhillers had not expected her there.
The Milan Cortina Games did not bring her the medal she had hoped for. Eighth in the giant slalom, she finished 18 hundredths off the podium, in an unusually tight race. Same place in the super-G. But the season itself was the most complete of her career: fifth overall and second in the super-G standings.
What she brings to the circuit
Robinson embodies what skiing is becoming: a global sport, in which a skier from the Southern Hemisphere can win in giant slalom as well as in super-G. She starts the 2027 season as a two-discipline specialist, with one simple question. How far will she go, now that she has learned to last?
Portrait published on 5 September 2025, revised on 6 October 2026: 2026 season added (victories, Milan Cortina Games, standings).