Queenstowner Tim Cafe recalls having a conversation with his mum, Carrie, about 2016, not long before he jetted off to Chile for a winter.
"Mum was giving me a bit of an haranguing about what I was going to do with my life.
"Which was quite good, because I said to her, ‘you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to coach Alice Robinson’.
"Later that day, I went over to the Robinson’s house, had a chat ... and it’s worked out quite well."
Cafe, a born and raised local, was brought up on snow with his dad, the late Wayne, and got into ski racing when he was about 10, through the Queenstown Alpine Ski Team (QAST).
He went on to specialise in Super G, competed at two world champs and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler, Canada, and retired the following year.
After he benefited from free New Zealand Snow Sports Instructors Alliance training, he spent five years working with QAST, ultimately becoming the under-16 head coach, and spending our summers ski instructing in Aspen, US.
But by then, he’d already had a longtime association with the Robinson family, having met Alice when she was about 9.
"I saw her ski and even at that point I was like, ‘whoa, this is different to anything I’ve seen at this age’.
"I knew that she had everything that was foundationally required to become that good."
He spent about six years advising Alice before that fateful day in 2016 when he officially became her coach.
The pair got astounding results, which is possibly why the news, in 2019, that Alice had split with Cafe in favour of Chris Knight and Jeff Fergus — who’d coached the likes of American alpine ski racers Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso — made national headlines.
Cafe says Alice ultimately just wanted coaches with that level of experience.
So he spent a couple of years in the United States, then in Queenstown became the Coberger Academy’s head coach, before a stint at Yellowstone Club, in the Rocky Mountains — described as "like a private golf course of ski areas".
Alice, meantime, had some incredible initial results, including three wins.
Eventually, though, Alice was "sort of left in a position where she wanted to look backwards in order to go forwards, I guess," Cafe says.
"Towards the end of that season [in early 2023], I got a phone call, out of the blue, from Alice, to say ‘are you keen to come back on tour?’
"Without thinking twice I said, ‘absolutely’."
Knight was still on board, at that stage, and just before a spring training camp they roped in fellow Queenstowner Nils Coberger, a renowned coach and founder of the Coberger Academy.
After a couple weeks’ training in Italy that April, the coaching team — Coberger and Cafe — was cemented.
While the difference between a podium finish and a DNF can come down to minute details, Cafe says they’ve been focused on "broader strokes ... her wellbeing, happiness and the holistic side of it".
"It was ... making sure she was enjoying it and going back to, really, the basic fundamentals, that we know work, which she needed to go back to."
It seems to be doing the trick.
This past season she podiumed five times — four seconds and a third — at the World Cup, and last Thursday the 2024 Central Otago senior sportswoman of the year was crowned the NZ GS national champion for the second year running, at Coronet Peak.
Next week she’ll line up there again, competing in the Winter Games NZ as the top-ranked athlete.
Then, in October, ‘Team Alice’ heads off to the northern hemisphere, where they’ll bounce around different locations almost weekly from December till the end of March.
"It is a hell of a way to see the world — you only see very specific parts of the world, though, namely ski resorts," Cafe says.
Not that he minds — "skiing is my therapy; it keeps me grounded and happy ... coaching people at all levels brings me a lot of joy".
He’s relishing the challenges coaching presents.
"It’s all the pieces of the puzzle that need to come together — it’s a really good challenge for your brain to be able to put those bits in order and see if you can produce, or your athlete can produce, the results."
And he’s confident Alice can.
US ski racer Mikaela Shiffrin, at 29, is considered "the GOAT", or greatest of all time.
But Alice — even with six years’ world cup experience, two Winter Olympics under her belt, and multiple podiums to her name — is still just getting started.
"We’ve got to pinch ourselves all the time.
"Most of the athletes, particularly on the girls’ side right now, are upwards of 30 years old.
"She’s 22."
And Cafe says, as long as it’s working, he’ll be with her every step of the way.
"I’m a ski coach, much to my mum’s chagrin," he laughs.
"She loves it; she just misses me when I’m away."
