Brazil's Braathen and Switzerland's Meillard Set to Challenge Odermatt
In the new alpine skiing World Cup season, Swiss star Marco Odermatt is expected to be challenged for the Crystal Globe by Brazil's Pinheiro Braathen and Switzerland's Loïc Meillard.
Ahead of the new alpine skiing World Cup season, run by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), Brazilian skier Pinjeiru Brotens (Pinheiro Braathen) and Swiss racer Loïc Meillard are named as the main challengers to Switzerland's Marco Odermatt, who races on Stöckli skis. Odermatt has been the dominant figure in the sport, but serious rivals have emerged in recent years.
Odermatt's last season
Last season Odermatt won the overall World Cup title for the fifth year in a row and also took the Crystal Globes in downhill and super-G. He finished second in giant slalom. Over the past five seasons he has claimed 16 of the 20 Globes he competed for.
In the last two major championships he collected one gold, in the super-G at the 2025 World Championships, and two silver medals. Crans-Montana may therefore be where he looks to reassert his superiority. January 23 is also marked in his calendar: the day he hopes to finally win the long-desired downhill on the Streif course in the Hahnenkamm races.
Braathen aims for the big globe
Pinheiro Braathen, 26, beat Odermatt last season for both the Olympic title and the World Cup title in giant slalom. He gave Brazil its first Olympic medal and first World Cup trophy, and he plans to win the country's first world championship gold medal next February.
Braathen has set his sights on the "two missing elements", the first of which is taking the Crystal Globe away from Odermatt. To do so he must start collecting points in a third discipline, super-G, where he has started only three World Cup races so far. Viewers will see the Brazilian on more than just short skis this winter.
Meillard's consistency
Loïc Meillard, the reigning Olympic and world champion in slalom, has taken two second places and one third place in the last three giant slalom races with World Cup points. Last season he had to wait until mid-December for his first podium. If he starts more convincingly this time, the Rossignol skier should be a serious contender.
