Over 80 athletes from 13 nations descended on The Hurdle at Coronet Peak for the final day of alpine ski racing in the 2022 Winter Games NZ programme. On today’s schedule was the second FIS Australia New Zealand Cup Giant Slalom, rounding out the series.
Kiwi alpine ski racing superstar Alice Robinson has taken the win in the women’s field today, along with claiming the Yellow Bib for the Giant Slalom Australia New Zealand Cup. Andreas Zampa (SVK) has claimed the top spot in the men’s field, off the back of yesterday’s strong silver medal performance in the same discipline.
Another cold night produced fantastic conditions at Coronet peak, the snow on course was hard and fast, providing perfect ski racing conditions.
After the first run Robinson was sitting in fourth place, +0.84 behind Katie Hensien (USA), the current leader. A blinder of a second run saw Robinson close the time deficit and take the win by over almost half a second. Ava Sunshine (USA) finished in second place +0.49 seconds behind Robinson with Hensien in third, a mere two hundredths of a second behind teammate Sunshine.
At the bottom of the course an ecstatic Robinson said, “It feels so good, I am really happy with how I held myself today, first run was a little bit rusty and second run I just tried to get back to that usual race charge, I’m really happy.”
It has been a challenging FIS ANC series for Robinson, recording two Did Not Finish (DNF) results along with her third-place finish in Super G on Saturday. She explained “I just upped my concentration and started focusing more on the process and trusting my ability a bit more and hoping that if I skied well the results would come. Definitely a big mind change today from the last few days so I will have to keep working on that.”
Over in the men’s race, brothers Andreas and Adam Zampa (SVK) held the top two positions after run one, with Adam +0.26 behind younger brother Andreas. Yesterday’s Giant Slalom gold medalist Isaiah Nelson (USA) was sitting in third position, +0.41 behind the leader.
Andreas held his lead throughout the highly contested second run to take the win, with Nelson finishing in second, just +0.16 behind him. Adam had to settle for third place, +0.32 seconds behind his little brother Andreas.
“It feels really good, it is always fantastic to be in New Zealand and to do the races, so I am very happy with today’s victory.” Explained Andreas just minutes after his winning run.
Andreas, who finished in third place yesterday in the same discipline, explained “I was looking on yesterday’s video and thought that I could go a bit more direct and actually I lost so much time yesterday on the flats yesterday so today I think it was better.”
Today marks the end of the Alpine Ski Racing programme at the 2022 Winter Games NZ. Competition resumes on Thursday with the FIS ANC Halfpipe qualifiers, followed by the FIS ANC Slopestyle qualifiers on Friday. The finals will be held over the coming weekend.
