MILAN: Lucas Pinheiro Braathen made history for Brazil by clinching his nation’s first Winter Olympic medal with gold in the giant slalom.
Born in Oslo to a Norwegian father and Brazilian mother, Pinheiro Braathen won World Cup medals for the country of his birth before announcing his shock retirement in 2023 having lost his “joy of living”.
Exactly a year to the day, having regained his love for skiing, he returned to the sport in the green and yellow of Brazil - wanting to honour his heritage on his mother’s side.
In snowy conditions in Bormio, the 25-year-old delivered a masterclass on the Stelvio piste to beat Swiss great Marco Odermatt to gold by 0.58 seconds, with Odermatt’s team-mate Loic Meillard taking bronze.
Pinheiro Braathen’s gold also marks the first medal won by any South American country at the Winter Games.
“There is nothing about today, in the heat of the moment, where you are, in any form, in a cognitive state,” he said.
“I was skiing completely according to my intuition, and my heart today, and that’s what enabled me to become an Olympic
champion.
“It had nothing to do with the medal, it had nothing to do with the history that I had the potential of writing. “I just wanted to ski as.
