Skister doesn’t go as expected: is Odermatt the problem with Meillard?

He has already proven enough that Meillard embodies the potential to regularly finish in the top 3. Last winter, the model athlete with roots in Neuchâtel stood on the World Cup podium five times and won gigantic silver behind Marco Odermatt at the World Championships in Courchevel.

There is a lack of confidence in the skis

Why didn’t Loïc manage to make the jump to the “Stockerl” this winter? “From a purely technical point of view, the Meillard lacks nothing. “No one can use indoor skiing more brilliantly than Loïc,” Austrian top analyst Hans Knauss (52) is convinced. The 1999 Kitzbühel champion adds the big “but”: “Loïc currently lacks the confidence to push himself to the limit with every swing.”

The German ski pope Felix Neureuther (39) keeps a close eye on Meillard as an ARD commentator. The giant and slalom veteran noticed “that Loïc’s system no longer works as desired as soon as the slopes become rougher. I suspect this problem is due to his shoe. And because he doesn’t have confidence in the coordination of the material, he doesn’t dare to push himself to the limit with every swing.”

Is Meillard bothered by Odermatt’s dominance?

Other insiders have long suspected that Meillard is also falling apart due to the dominance of his towering teammate Marco Odermatt (26). “The fact is that Loïc won the giant slalom in my hometown of Schladming in an excellent manner last winter, in which Odermatt could not start after his knee injury sustained in Kitzbühel. At the time, I was sure that Meillard would regularly fight for victory after this fantastic performance. “But since Marco came back, Loïc hasn’t won again,” says Knauss.

Through the legendary Hermann Maier (51), Styria knows from personal experience that it is not easy when you have an athlete of the century in your own team. “The Herminator was both a blessing and a curse for me,” says the 52-year-old. “Although I was regularly in the top class at the time, I and other successful teammates were always in the shadows because the journalists attacked the serial winner Maier. At the same time, Hermann also made me better.”

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At some point, Knauss realized that second-rate wasn’t enough to get noticed. “That’s why I pushed myself even further.”

Felix Neureuther had similar experiences in his duels with eight-time overall World Cup winner Marcel Hirscher (34). “If Hirscher had not existed, I would have achieved not 13, but 26 World Cup victories and two World Cup gold medals,” said Neureuther.

«I am still grateful that Marcel was my competitor, because only thanks to him I got the absolute maximum out of myself. Because he was so strong, I knew I had to get up early to train on Christmas and New Year’s Day too. But Meillard has never lacked work ethic: the educated banker is one of the hardest workers in the ski circus.