'Simply perfect': Meillard leads Swiss clean sweep in Val d'Isère

Loic Meillard (SUI/Rossignol) entered this season as the the man most likely to challenge Marco Odermatt's (SUI/Stöckli) multi-discipline dominance, until everything started to go wrong.

Back on track on Saturday, that prediction finally came to fruition as Meillard put his early-season struggles behind him to conquer one of the toughest Giant Slalom races on the World Cup tour in Val d'Isère.

With only one top 10 finish from his first seven starts this season — ninth in the Beaver Creek GS — Meillard seemed out of sorts and nowhere near his form of last season, when he finished with a bang to win three races in March alone.

He finally found his groove down the steep pitch of the the Face de Bellevarde, however, coming from fifth after the first run to set a leading time that couldn't be beaten by those ahead of him — not even the great Odermatt.

In a day painted Swiss red in neighbouring France, Meillard was joined on the podium by teammates Luca Aerni (SUI/Fischer, +0.18s), who made his first career Giant Slalom podium, and Odermatt (+0.33s).

"It's amazing," said Meillard, who didn't even have victory on his radar entering the race, as he was just trying to work his way back into form.

"Fourth place would have been pretty amazing today, a good step in the right direction," he admitted. "But to win directly, it's simply perfect."

While he wasn't back to his absolute best, his form on Saturday was a huge improvement from his early-season disappointments that saw him register two DNFs and four results of 14th or worse.

"It shows the work we've been putting in the last two weeks with the team," said the 29-year-old, who was third in the Overall standings a season ago.

"We've worked on a few small (things) in the end, nothing big — but just finding the right movement again, the flow, and today it worked."

The victory was made even more special by the fact that he shared the podium with Aerni, who moved up 11 spots from 13th, and Odermatt, who held on for third to make it five podiums in seven races in all disciplines so far this season.

"With Odi I'm used to do podiums with him, but Luca, his first podium in GS, he's been working hard the last two seasons," Meillard said.

Aerni was 1.36 seconds off the pace in 13th place after the first run, but used a relatively clean track to ski the second-fastest time of the entire second run to take the provisional lead.

With 12 racers still to come with an advantage over him from the first run, however, he wasn't initially thinking about the podium at all.

"First I was just happy for my performance," he said. "Then seeing I'm with Loic on the podium, also because we train a lot in the summer together, and then Odi is always there — so very nice."

Known as more of a Slalom specialist, Aerni's lone World Cup podium before Saturday came in the more technical discipline nearly eight years ago in Madonna di Campiglio.

He has been gradually improving his Giant Slalom form, however, coinciding with a bill of good health that allowed him to finish fourth in the same race in Val d'Isère last year before improving two spots on Saturday.

"I always try to ski GS in training but then I had some back problems," he said. "I think since two years ago, it's very good with the back and I have a very good feeling on the skis."

If Aerni was an unexpected figure on the podium, the supreme Odermatt was not. The four-time defending globe winner in the discipline has landed in the top three in the last 36 World Cup GS races he has completed, dating all the way back to the 2021 World Cup finals.

On Saturday, however, he only just made it.

Skiing cautiously in a more direct first run set by the Swiss coaching staff, Odermatt managed only fourth. When he caught his hand in a gate midway down the second run and finished third with three skiers to come, it seemed his podium streak would come to an end.

But the three fastest men from the first run who followed him — Timon Haugan (NOR/Van Deer), Henrik Kristoffersen (NOR/Van Deer) and finally Stefan Brennsteiner (AUT/Fischer) — all faltered, allowing Odermatt to hang on to third.

"With those two runs I'm not actually happy with my skiing, but to end up on a podium with two friends on the top, that's an amazing day," the Swiss star said.

"It was a tough week, with the jet lag, with coming back to different snow. It was not that easy today to get into this 100% race focus. But still, I skied down twice with a fight and luckily it was enough for the podium."

Not enough for the podium, on the other hand, was Brennsteiner's second run, only the 22nd best of the field to push him down from first to fifth.

After an aggressive, fluid first run that had him on track for his second win of the season, the Austrian veteran seemed burdened by being the last skier on the mountain in the second leg, and his nervous run was littered with errors.

His failure to even make it onto the podium confirmed the clean sweep for Switzerland, though any thought of a big celebration on Saturday night will be put on hold with Sunday's Slalom still to come for Meillard and Aerni.

"I think not for Luca and neither for me because tomorrow we have the Slalom, but a glass (of wine) will be there with dinner," Meillard said.

Click here for full results from Saturday's race.