On this sunny November morning, Félix Meier faces another long, grueling day — something he’s well used to. Driving out of his hometown Lausanne, he covers 110 kilometers to Bern, where his strength and conditioning coach will push him to the limit at the Rope Fitness Center. There, the super welterweight works on endurance, power, and explosiveness. But this brutal workout won’t be his only challenge today. “At noon I eat and rest a bit, then it’s back to work.” In the afternoon, Meier heads to the legendary Boxing Kings Gym, where he trains under former pro Alain Chervet, preparing for his next fights.

To pursue boxing full-time, the 20-year-old has temporarily paused his high school diploma. Thanks to sponsors — and the fact that he can still live with his mother — he can sustain a professional athlete’s life. His daily routine perfectly reflects the early stages of a boxing career: staying grounded and fighting for progress every day.

When Meier talks about his journey, he does so with calm matter-of-factness. He describes himself as an “extreme person.” Watching him outside the ring, it’s hard to see why. His voice is soft, his demeanor gentle. The son of a German mother, he speaks perfect German — tinged with a French accent from his upbringing in the Romandy region.

But behind the calm exterior is a fiercely focused and driven boxer. “When I like something, I give it everything. Even when I’m tired, I keep going.” It’s this determination that makes Meier one of Switzerland’s most promising boxing talents.

Christina Nigg, former head of elite sports at the Swiss Boxing Federation and assistant national coach, first noticed Meier at youth tournaments. “He immediately stood out,” she recalls. She brought him into the national squad at 16 — by then, he had already won several national titles. But during one-on-one pad sessions, she noticed something odd: his foot positioning was off, and his basic punches were technically wrong. “The fundamentals were missing.”

After speaking with Meier and his mother, Nigg discovered he had largely trained himself — sometimes using YouTube videos — and still managed to succeed. “Félix is an instinctive boxer,” she says. His fights never revealed his lack of technical training, but it made coaching harder. What he did have was an intuitive feel for distance and timing — knowing when and where to strike. “That’s something you can’t teach. You either have it, or you don’t.”

To bring him up to international level, Nigg had to rebuild his foundation. She created custom training documents for him, translated them into French, and began the painstaking process of correcting ingrained habits. “It was like rewriting a computer program,” Nigg says. It takes 5,000 to 6,000 perfect repetitions for a new movement to fully take hold.

Meier committed completely. “He’s a dream to work with,” says Nigg. “He’s a perfectionist — the kind who wants to train again right after a fight. Sometimes you have to slow him down.”

That relentless drive once led to a setback. At 17, Meier aimed to qualify for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. When his weight class was dropped from the program, he tried cutting eight kilos to move down — a move that caused health problems and forced him to realize amateur boxing might not be his path.

It was a turning point. He worked at McDonald’s, as a security guard, and on construction sites. Once he’d saved enough, he flew to the U.S. — to Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego — sparring wherever he could. “I wanted to test myself against professionals there and see where I stood.” It turned out, he could hold his own.

He then picked up the phone and called his now-manager, Leander Strupler, with whom he had long been in contact. Together, they signed Meier’s first professional contract — one Strupler describes as full of potential: “My vision is for Félix to become a boxing superstar in Switzerland.”

Not just for his boxing ability, but for his character and solid foundation. Strupler hopes Meier can even help reshape Swiss boxing — becoming a “role model” to prove it’s possible to build a pro career here.

The start has been promising. After five fights, Meier remains undefeated — with four wins by knockout. In June, a bout in Ulm had to be canceled after a sparring injury to his eardrum. But two more fights await before year’s end — November 25 in Geneva and December 26 at the Boxing Day event in Bern. It’s a busy schedule for the Lausanne native. “I always have to be ready,” says Meier.