Alice Robinson might have been a surfer on Bondi Beach rather than a world-beating Alpine skier if her parents had not moved from Australia to New Zealand when she was four years old.

The Sydney-born 24-year-old has instead made waves in a snow sport historically dominated by Europeans and North Americans, who have claimed most of the medals and all of the golds.

Robinson, the most successful skier ever from outside these powerhouse regions, is preparing for another big step at next month’s Milano Cortina Olympics, marking her third Winter Games.

Based in Queenstown, Robinson has claimed seven career World Cup victories, including three this season. She also made history as the first Kiwi to win a Super-G race. A gold medalist at the junior level in 2019, she went on to take silver in giant slalom at last year’s World Championships in Saalbach, Austria.

“New Zealand is a small country in the middle of nowhere, but we punch well above our weight in terms of sport,” she said in February. “It’s exciting that winter sports are starting to become like that as well.”

With several top rivals sidelined by surgery or recovering from injury, Robinson is considered a genuine medal contender as she aims for her first Olympic podium.

The pressure is something Robinson feels better equipped to manage this time around. She currently leads this season’s Super-G standings after two of seven races, despite previous ups and downs.

“There’s always been a lot of extra noise around the Olympics because, nationally in New Zealand, it’s such a bigger deal than the World Cup tour,” Robinson told the FIS Alpine Pulse podcast.

“It’s definitely something I put a lot of pressure on myself about in the past, and it hasn’t always gone well. This time, I really just want to treat it as another race. I think we’ve got good systems in place now so I can just go there, have fun, and enjoy being a competitor.”

A First for the Southern Hemisphere

Only three countries from outside Europe and North America—New Zealand, Australia, and Japan—have ever won medals in Alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics, and none have claimed gold.

At Albertville in 1992, New Zealand’s Annelise Coberger won a breakthrough women’s slalom silver. Coberger, whose brother Nils is now part of Robinson’s coaching team, was the first Southern Hemisphere athlete to medal in the sport. She was followed by Australia’s Zali Steggall, who won slalom bronze in 1998, and Japan’s Chiharu Igaya, men’s slalom silver medalist in 1956.

Robinson competed in giant slalom and slalom at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics as a 16-year-old, becoming New Zealand’s youngest Winter Olympian. Her first World Cup win came in giant slalom in Soelden, Austria, in October 2019.

Unlike many European rivals raised in skiing families, Robinson’s path was different. What she had was a ski school nearby, a fearless attitude, and raw speed—now balanced by maturity on the World Cup circuit.

“My mom told me the other day that it was cheaper to put me in the ski creche than to get a babysitter,” Robinson told the FIS podcast.

Relocating across the globe to compete was challenging, but life might have taken a very different turn if she had stayed in Australia.

“I think I would have been in sports, but probably something more mainstream in New Zealand or Australia,” she said. “Maybe I would have been a surfer if I grew up in Bondi.”

-Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Peter Rutherford/Reuters