MILAN:
Brazil’s Lucas Pinheiro Braathen held his nerve to win the men’s giant slalom in Bormio on Saturday for South America’s first ever gold in the Winter Olympics.
The Norwegian-born Braathen, fastest down in the first leg, was composure personified in the second to win in an aggregate time of 2min 25.00sec.
Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt, already a winner of team combined silver and super-G bronze, claimed a second silver, 0.58sec behind, having been the only skier to have got within a second of the Brazilian in the opening run.
Odermatt’s teammate Loic Meillard, who partnered Odermatt in the combined event, rounded out the podium, 1.17sec off Braathen’s time.
The victory for Braathen, racing for his mother’s homeland of Brazil after falling out with the Norwegian ski federation, meant a first ever Winter Olympic medal of any colour for an athlete representing Latin America.
“I was skiing completely according to my intuition and my heart today, and that’s what enabled me to become an Olympic champ,” said Braathen.
“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 the person I am. I know I can be the best in the world, if I do that to the greatest extent.”
The best previous individual Winter Olympic result for a South American athlete was Brazil’s Isabel Clark Ribeiro, who finished ninth in the snowboard cross in the 2006 Torino Games.
The best alpine skiing result to date was that of Chile’s Thomas Grob, who finished 11th in the combined at the 1998 Nagano Games.
The 25-year-old Braathen was born in Oslo to a Norwegian father and Brazilian mother, but spent time in South America as a child after his parents separated.
His father, who he describes as a ski bum, won custody and brought him back to Norway, but Braathen made yearly visits to Brazil from the age of 11. He was raised speaking both Norwegian and Portuguese.
After falling out with the Norwegian ski federation over sponsorship rights, Braathen stepped away from the World Cup circuit in the 2023-24 season before returning under the Brazilian flag in October 2024.
Racing for Brazil, Braathen has sealed nine World Cup podium finishes — five in the giant slalom, four in the slalom — and one victory, in the slalom in Levi, Finland, in November.
Swiss challenge
On the Stelvio course in Bormio, experienced Austrian Marco Schwarz, a seven-time world championship medallist and 18th fastest in the first leg, led through until the top eight made appeared.
Norway’s Atle Lie McGrath was first in the start hut as racing moved to the business end of affairs.
In increasingly cold and snowy conditions, McGrath went into the lead.
Then came Austria’s Stefan Brennsteiner, a winner in the World Cup in Copper Mountain this season, but he failed to dislodge McGrath.
Vastly experienced Henrik Kristoffersen was next up. The 31-year-old who was 2019 world giant slalom champion, however, came in behind his teammate.
That left the top five racers. France’s Leo Anguenot finished 0.16sec off McGrath, but Switzerland’s Thomas Tumler made no such mistake, the reigning world giant slalom silver medallist racing into the lead.
Tumler could only look on as teammate Meillard scorched into the lead before Odermatt, searching a third medal and first gold of these Games, laid down a crushing run to snatch the lead in style.
Only Braathen was left in the start hut and the Brazilian kicked out of the gate and kept his cool, again mastering the mid-section flats to deliver the 11th fastest second run, which was enough for a comfortable victory.
Braathen looked at the big screen in tearful disbelief in the finish area, thrusting one ski up to the acclaim of the public before falling into the arms of his father Bjorn.
