You can easily recognize him by his yellow helmet, from his main sponsor, a cheese brand. His teammates call him Cheese Head for several reasons. Can he laugh? Because it’s nice that cheese brand that for more than ten years has ensured that he can do what he likes most full-time, that he can rent a ‘student room’ in Innsbruck with a view of a mountain range, and that there are ski slopes in Austria and Italy at his feet.
Without that support, he would never have been where he is today, at the Beijing Winter Olympics, as the first male skier on behalf of the Netherlands in seventy years, while the first snow in weeks flutters down in thick flakes.
The complete program of the Winter Olympics
However, leniency was needed from sports umbrella organization NOC-NSF. The requirement of twice a place in the top sixteen or once in the top eight in the world was too ambitious. With two top thirty times, he was already the best Dutchman in history. Still, the phone rang, two weeks before the opening ceremony. Retiring technical director Maurits Hendriks himself. He was allowed to go to Beijing, because there were special circumstances. At the beginning of the pandemic, ski areas were sometimes inaccessible to him. Then national ski teams were given priority over a Dutchman. And he could not train optimally. His achievements were therefore extra special.
Happier in the mountains
The first time Maarten Meiners (30) was on skis was as a boy on a green brush track. Six seconds, you were down. His friends at school had asked him to go on a winter sports holiday and he agreed, but he didn’t want to be taught by a teacher whose language he didn’t speak. After seven lessons at the Wolfskamer in Huizen, he went to Austria for the holiday that would give direction to his life.
It was as if Meiners was happier in the mountains. His parents had never seen him like this. more vital. Through the fresh mountain air, space, nature. As an asthma patient, he could breathe more deeply. Back in the Netherlands you saw his energy level drop, says mother Ellen. Then it was time for him to recharge in the mountains.
During that period, Meiners cycled to the brush track five times a week. He had managed to get a trailer via Marktplaats, in which his skis fit exactly after some sawing. Father Gordon usually drove his son to competitions. First in the Netherlands, then as far as Italy. On Friday afternoon at 200 kilometers per hour to the Alps, a race on Saturday, and back just as fast on Sunday. Meiners arranged a postponement for tests with the rector himself. As his ski results continued to improve, he also started looking for potential sponsors himself. He asked the owner of a sports shop if he could get a discount on ski clothing if he could be seen in the mountains with their logo.
Skier Jelinkova is an outsider in the Olympic team of the Netherlands
There were weekends when Meiners had to prepare himself for an international competition. You didn’t have that with him. He then selected a team, asked the trainer if he could also take a look at him, and thus found his way into an alpine sport where you are laughed at when you say you had to learn it on a plastic track.
Still, his parents let him go. “You have a child to borrow,” says his mother. “It is up to us to bring it to fruition. Whatever his talent may be. If Maarten had wanted to play the cello, that’s fine too. But he was jumping for joy when he was allowed to return to Austria.” She calls her son “a lone warrior.” As a classical singer, she was sometimes alone.
National junior selection
In 2008, at the age of sixteen, Meiners was included in the national junior selection of the Dutch Ski Association. He trained there for five years under Harald de Man, in the 1990s the first Dutch skier to achieve World Cup points. From that moment on he really started to spend hours in the snow. At the same time, he completed his pre-university education and then a bachelor’s degree in finance at the UvA. From 2008 to 2017, his career was funded by the federation and NOC-NSF, who saw progress. It was during this period that he moved to Innsbruck. Meiners saw this as a necessary step to get better. But when his move to a German team did not bring the desired results, the sports umbrella withdrew its support.
After wandering, Meiners ended up with a team of adventurers; skiers like him. An Australian, Belgians, Americans who had lost their minds in their own country and tried to fight back with the Global Racing Ski Team.
They contribute 20,000 euros per person per year to pay for three coaches and their travel costs. On top of that are your own expenses. They share the physiotherapist with eight, the equipment man with two. Meiners costs about 80,000 euros per year. A quarter is still sponsored by the association. The rest he has to scrape together himself.
In the spring he invariably goes around with the cap. Then there are no matches, he has some more time. In fact, he is busy every day finding “partners.” A management agency creates his website and helps him with his tax return. For the rest it is a matter of being visible on social media. That has become increasingly important. But he is not an influencer. Skiing is number one. With a zest for work and a bit of luck, he pioneered his way to the highest podium.
At the top of a steep slope in the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Center, Meiners is on Sunday morning in the orange suit that he himself had printed with the correct logos in recent weeks at the start of the giant slalom, the discipline that best suits his physical condition (1.78 meters). , 84 kilos) and his skills.
2022 Winter Olympics medal standings
In the first run he becomes 22nd, so he gets to participate in the second. In between, he says he suffered a back injury three days ago and has barely been able to walk, let alone ski, since then. Had to be done right now. But the pain doesn’t get in the way of the optimist. Adrenaline and painkillers help, he says with a smile.
Risk
In the second run, Meiners takes more risk. He wants to give everything for a place in the top fifteen. As a result, he almost crashes twice. He is eighteenth and he is “partly” proud of that. The gap with winner Marco Odermatt from Switzerland is more than six seconds. He will need more resources to close that in four years’ time at the Winter Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo. So that he can expand his team and improve peripheral matters. For example, he has only had three presentations on nutrition in fifteen years.
Just get that few percent better. In an outdoor sport like alpine skiing you never know. Imagine it starting to snow hard after you’ve just skied a fantastic run. Meiners returns to be “competitive”. He wants to do more than just participate.
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