BORMIO, Italy, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Like most young Brazilians, Lucas Pinheiro Braathen grew up wanting to emulate the country's fabled soccer players and maybe one day even wear the famous yellow and green.
On Saturday he became the vast South American country's latest and most unlikely sporting hero on a snowy slope in the Italian Alps, winning its first Winter Olympics gold medal and the first medal of any colour for a south American.
His stunning victory in the giant slalom was the latest landmark in a remarkable journey for the 25-year-old whose samba-style skiing has taken the winter sport by storm.
"I didn't grow up as a skier, I grew up as a football player. That was my introduction to sport," Norway-born Pinheiro Braathen told reporters after claiming victory by 0.58 seconds from Swiss favourite and defending champion Marco Odermatt.
"When I was visiting my family in Brazil, my first role models were Ronaldinho Gaucho, it was Ronaldo and those individuals that really changed the sports of football and sports in general, by daring to be who they are.
"That inspired me to even dare to go to my dad when I was around six or seven years old and tell him that I really want to become the best football player in the world.
"Now somehow I'm a skier, but at least I'm a champ."
Pinheiro Braathen moved to live with his Brazilian mother Alessandra at the age of three after she and his Norwegian father Bjorn divorced but returned later to Norway where he rather reluctantly took up skiing.
After becoming part of Norway's ski team and specialising in slalom he won the World Cup globe in the discipline in 2023 before stunning those in the sport by quitting, admitting in a recent documentary that skiing was making him miserable.
Everything changed though when he returned to the World Cup ranks in 2024, in Brazil's colours with a mission to spread the Alpine sport way beyond its traditional heartlands.
"I decided to come back to ski racing because I found the possibility of doing it on my own terms," he once said. "I made it clear that I'm coming back to make history and I'm coming back to be the best."
In November, high in the Finnish Arctic Circle, he began to make good on that vow as he became the first Brazilian to win a World Cup ski race, his previous five coming as a Norwegian.
Despite sitting second in the World Cup overall standings behind only Odermatt, the slalom specialist had not returned to the top of the podium. Until Saturday.
Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was one of the first to congratulate Brazil's new sporting hero, who even took a call from Italian slalom great Alberto Tomba.
The tears then flowed as the lively Brazilian anthem rang out for the first time ever at a Winter Games and he draped himself in the flag.
"The emotions I'm feeling right now are an internal sun inside of me that is shining so bright and towards so many people," the ever-philosophical Pinheiro Braathen said. "It is the very light that brought me the power to be the fastest in the world today and to become an Olympic champion.
"I really hope it can shine on others, inspire them in a way that they dare to follow their own light, their own heart and to trust in who they are."
Reflecting on what he admits has been a sometimes difficult and lonely path, he added: "If it wouldn't have been for all those choices that I've made, if I took the conventional path, I would never be sat here today."
(Reporting by Martyn HermanEditing by Toby Davis)
