Granted, she didn’t finish 2025 or begin 2026 as she would have liked, posting two did-not-finish results either side of the new year. But as she prepared to compete at the World Cup in Zauchensee, Austria this weekend, Robinson was looking forward to another opportunity to get to work as her schedule picked up towards the Winter Olympics in February.
“It was a pretty crazy start to the season. A lot of big successes, which is awesome. I’m feeling really happy. I think I struggled a little bit the last couple weeks; obviously, I had a crash in GS, which was disappointing, but other than that, it’s been pretty special,” Robinson told the Herald.
“There’s still quite a lot of racing to go before the Olympics, but there’s a lot to look forward to and a lot of big moments are about to happen.”
With a schedule over the next month that Robinson summed up as “pretty nuts”, there will be plenty of opportunities for the Kiwi to compete. Over the next few weeks, Robinson will race in Austria, twice in Italy, the Czech Republic and Switzerland across the GS, Super-G and downhill disciplines, before arriving back in Italy for her third Games.
“After the last couple of GS races, there’s two more races before the Olympics and I’m wanting to really execute good skiing in those next two. That’ll put me in good stead for Cortina.
“But other than that, I’m just trying to kind of stay with my process and my plan going into every race and just trying to execute my best skiing.”
While Robinson’s focus is on building, this weekend doubles as a final opportunity for other Kiwi athletes to earn their places in the New Zealand team for the Games.
Currently, the team is eight-strong, however Snow Sports New Zealand head of high performance Luke Hetzel told Newstalk ZB’s Nick Bewley that it was expected the team would grow after this weekend’s World Cup event in Aspen, Colorado.
“There’s a few athletes who are on the bubble or not yet selected and we should see a new round of selections come out … next week, to finish naming the team,” Hetzel said.
“We should see that coming out into the news around the 19th, 20th. We’ll have a good few more athletes to put on the team.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.
