Maarten Meiners was not even very happy after his Olympic debut. With an 18th place in the giant slalom, he achieved by far his best international performance ever. And that while he had actually not even met the qualification requirements, but the Dutchman has used his own standards all his skiing life.
‘If I had put in two good runs, a top-15 would have been possible. I was really happy with that,” he said afterwards. The second run in particular was not flawless. It was not for nothing that he had often repeated beforehand that it was not just about taking part for him. He just kept it up after his race.
He also immediately looked four years ahead: at the Winter Games in Milan he wants to participate again and perform better than now. Then he is 34 years old, which is relatively old for an athlete, but Meiners has an example. Earlier this year, at the age of 35, Briton Dave Ryding won a World Cup competition for the first time in his life, on the Hahnenkamm, the famous slope of Kitzbühel.
Reinventing the wheel six times
‘I have to get better step by step with hard work,’ says Meiners a few hours after his race. ‘I’m not an exceptional talent, if only because I just spent a lot less ski hours until I was 16. Those are the years when you develop a certain skiing feeling.’
The born Amersfoorter finished tenth in the giant slalom in the junior world championship in 2013, but he never finished so high in the big men. Only at the end of 2020 was there a first classification within the top-30 of a World Cup competition. In January of this year, a 28th place followed in Adelboden, Switzerland.
‘An upward trend is never linear, but goes with ups and downs’, says Meiners about his career to date. “It’s just very difficult to compete with the big countries, they have much more facilities. I’ve had to reinvent the wheel six times, and certainly in the last five years I’ve had to do a lot myself.’
It is the fate of a skier who grew up in the Netherlands. His sport is not only limited to the slopes, he also has to collect money to be able to ski at a high level and improve.
scurrying together
Meiners bears that fate without grumbling too much, he also seems to have fun selling himself. ‘I have an extremely unique story as a skier’, says the former economics and business student. In every interview he takes the chance to say that he has been ‘a proud cheese head’ for ten years. Since 2011, he has been skiing with a yellow helmet from sponsor Eru, for the past six years he has driven an Audi car. “That helped me a lot, but you can also put in the article that I’m looking for a new sponsor, the contract expires after this season.”
It costs him about 80 thousand euros per year to be active as a skier. About 20 percent comes from the Dutch ski association, the rest he has to scrape together himself. “It doesn’t keep me awake every night, but it’s always a struggle to get everything together.”
His recent performances have given him plenty of energy again. In 2008 he set himself the goal of finishing in the top 30 at two World Cups and to participate in the Games. He succeeded in the latter, being the first Dutch skier since the brothers Dick and Peter Pappenheim in 1952. Now a new challenge beckons: a place among the best thirty in the World Cup standings.
Making steps
‘That means that I have to be in the top thirty more often,’ he says. ‘With outliers to the top, top-15 and top-10.’ That’s ambitious enough for now. There are no medals in it yet, he admits. ‘I would like to set up a professional project to have a chance in four years’ time, because that is possible.’
He hopes for a contribution from the NOCNSF, which he already received earlier in his career. In 2018, he joined the Global Racing Ski Team, an international training team, with a professional technical staff and equipment man. But he would like to pay much more attention to good nutrition and invest more in physical supervision.
‘Every facet can certainly be improved by a few percent,’ thinks Meiners. ‘If I want to perform better in four years’ time, I will of course need the resources to do so. I hope that people at the Ski Association, the NOCNSF and in the business community will also see that: Maarten can still take steps.’