First gold medal of the Winter Olympics for Brazil! “This is some kind of joke, isn’t it,” many a TV viewer not familiar with the situation must have thought. However, the winner, Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, is not exactly Brazilian. He was born in Oslo to a Brazilian mother and a Norwegian father. So he was born in a country much closer to skiing than Brazil.

He’s lost his zest for life

This gifted athlete won medals at the World Championships for his native country, Norway. However, in 2023 he unexpectedly announced his retirement, which he justified by saying that he had lost the joy of life. He was young and his career was practically ahead of him. He returned to skiing a year later. But this time in the colours of Brazil.

The charmed footballer

The path to skiing was a strange one for Lucas. When he was young, he visited his family in Brazil and became fascinated by football stars. So at the age of six, he confided in his dad that he wanted to become the best footballer in the world. But that didn’t happen and he took up skiing. And he was great. One of the best, in fact, which he proved at this year’s Olympics in Italy.

━━ ( Source: David Dibert /  Pexels )

Brazilian success

“Today I skied completely according to my intuition and my heart and that allowed me to become an Olympic winner,” Braathen told reporters after the race. “It had nothing to do with the medal, it had nothing to do with the history I had the potential to write. I just wanted to ski the way I am. I know I can be the best in the world if I do that to the fullest extent.”

“Daring to trust yourself is something very universal,” Pinheiro Braathen said. “It’s very difficult, and with each passing day, with social media and constant exposure to other people’s live perspectives and opinions, it only gets harder. If anything, I hope I can be a source of inspiration today: you have to be who you are.”

Brazil won a medal in alpine skiing for the first time. But it was no great surprise in Pinheiro Braaten’s performance. After all, he is still considered one of the best slalom racers in the world. He won a World Cup race in Finland in November. It was a first for Brazil. He arrived at the Olympics as the second in the World Cup rankings in slalom and giant slalom.

He made history

Braathen is the first athlete from the southern hemisphere to win an Olympic medal in alpine skiing since Australian Zali Steggall won bronze in the women’s slalom. That was at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.

For Braathen, it’s not so much about the medal itself as it is about the message to the kids. He said he would like to inspire some kids that no matter what they wear, what they look like, where they come from, they can follow their dreams and be who they are. According to him, that is the real source of happiness in life. So it seems that while he was looking for joy and happiness in his life in 2023, he has now found it and wants to share that happiness and the recipe for it with others as well.