Beijing Winter Olympics 2022: Alice Robinson's medal dream crushed within seconds

Alice Robinson competes during women's giant slalom at the Beijing Games. Photo / Getty

Alice Robinson's quest for Winter Olympic glory in her specialist event was effectively over within a few seconds of her opening run in Beijing.

The 20-year-old had high hopes of challenging for the podium in the giant slalom today. But that dream was crushed within moments as Robinson made a series of mistakes on the top section of the course and couldn't recover.

She fought hard just to stay on her skis and eventually completed the course in a time of 1:00.55, finishing 2.99 seconds off the pace set by Sweden's Sara Hector.

Robinson posted the 25th-fastest opening run to guarantee a top-30 start for the second run later in the day, but she was too far back to contemplate challenging for the podium.

Her second run was only fractionally quicker than the first as she again struggled with her turns and grip on the snow. Robinson finished 22nd overall, 5.13 seconds behind the combined time of Hector who claimed gold.

The opening run had plenty of drama as Robinson first watched reigning Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin crash out after only a handful of gates before last season's World Cup champion Marta Bassino followed suit.

The Kiwi's first three turns out of the gate on her opening run were poor as she battled to get to grips with the conditions. Her outside ski failed to grip into the snow and the aggressive Robinson had to correct herself all the way down the hill.

Afterwards Robinson indicated she had an equipment problem. "Struggled a bit with the equipment and getting grip on the snow," she told Sky Sport after the first run. "It was a bit of a struggle and I couldn't find anything the whole way down."

Co-coach Chris Knight later confirmed there had been an issue with her set up.

"We are obviously gutted with what happened," he said. "Alice was incredible in warmup this morning - good speed, good energy, dynamic skiing.

"Unfortunately you could see from the very first gate she had to make a turn on, something was wrong underneath her feet and it continued the rest of the way to the bottom. It was devastating for everybody."

Former New Zealand skier Claudia Riegler, who won four World Cup slalom races during her career in the late 1990s and early 2000s, agreed something must have gone wrong with Robinson's equipment set up.

"She was aggressive out of the starting gate but something was definitely not right because I have never seen her ski like that ever, so something was wrong," Riegler told the Herald from her home in France.

"The turns at the top were so difficult for the right approach from the starting gate because they were so turny and a lot of the girls struggled to get the timing right."

Robinson will be bitterly disappointed after starting the season with high hopes of joining Annelise Coberger - who claimed slalom silver in Albertville 1992 - as the only New Zealand alpine ski racer to win an Olympic medal.

Four years ago she became New Zealand's youngest Olympian while finishing 35th in the giant slalom in PyeongChang, backing up that breakthrough by winning three World Cup races in the discipline.

Robinson finished last season strongly, winning the World Cup finals in Switzerland and finishing fourth at the world championships in Italy, but she did experience some struggles this season.

Her speed has been there but mistakes have proved costly - and contracting Covid-19 in December certainly didn't help - with her best finish being an 11th in her opening race.

Robinson now has to put the disappointment behind her and start preparations for her second of three events, the super G on Friday.

She is a rookie in the discipline at World Cup level, with just 11 starts, but has made great strides this season, finishing fourth, seventh and ninth in her last three races to sit as an outside contender to make the podium.