An Olympics of firsts: Brazil and Kazakhstan claim surprise golds
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
By PATRICIA MAZZEL and TARIQ PANJA
Brazil boasts beaches and sunshine, not ski slopes and snow. Its single-name athletic legends tend to play soccer, the country’s defining sport.
So when Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, an exuberant alpine skier, won gold for Brazil in the men’s giant slalom race Saturday, he not only made history as the first medal winner from South America at a Winter Olympics, but also rewrote the definition of what a Brazilian athlete could be.
The 2026 Games in northern Italy have delivered emotional firsts over the past two days for countries that are less than winter sports powerhouses. Figure skater Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan, 21, finished first in the men’s competition Friday, securing in dramatic fashion his country’s first gold medal in the sport over favorites from the United States and Japan.
Pinheiro Braathen, 25, completed his victory run Saturday and collapsed onto the snow at the bottom of the ski course in the town of Bormio, quieting an army of spectators from neighboring Switzerland, whose skiers have otherwise dominated the men’s downhill races. He danced and shed tears as the outnumbered but boisterous Brazil fans waved flags and cheered.
“I don’t know how to put into words what I’m feeling right now,” Pinheiro Braathen told Brazilian television network Globo moments after his win. “To everyone watching in Brazil, following me and cheering for me, I hope this can be a source of inspiration for the next generation of children. Nothing is impossible. It doesn’t matter where you come from, your clothes or the color of your skin.”
Shaidorov’s triumph in figure skating the night before was not quite as historic — Kazakhstan won a Winter Games gold medal 32 years ago in cross-country skiing — but perhaps just as unexpected. He skated a flawless program and then watched as more celebrated competitors, including American Ilia Malinin, stumbled under the Olympic spotlight.
“He was so good in every element of what he did. Every jump was just perfect,” said Nadezhda Morozova, a speedskater from Kazakhstan, who watched Shaidorov with her teammates the night before she raced in Milan. She added with a smile: “The whole country is very happy for him. It’s like a big festival of happiness in Kazakhstan.”
Still, few victories at these Games have been as momentous as the one for Brazil, a country so defined by its achievement in a single sport — soccer — that many fans who turned out to cheer on Pinheiro Braathen wore the canary yellow Brazilian soccer jersey.
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said on the social platform X that Pinheiro Braathen would “forever be etched into the history of Brazilian sport.”
Brazil brought its largest delegation ever to a Winter Olympics this year, consisting of 14 athletes in five sports. Still, winter sports are so rare in Brazil that Globo spent the minutes before Pinheiro Braathen’s run educating its audience about the giant slalom.
Pinheiro Braathen was born not in Brazil but in Norway, where his father is from, and used to ski for that country. His mother is from Brazil, and the dual national had already endeared himself to Brazilians with his accent-flecked Portuguese and energetic personality. He belted out the Brazilian national anthem from the medal podium, pausing at times as he appeared overcome with emotion.
“He has a Brazilian soul,” said Mariana Di Pilla, a Brazilian who lives in Italy.
Brazil, which hosted the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, has historically done well at the Summer Games, and its Olympic committee usually reserves a hospitality venue for its team and supporters during those competitions. It had never done so for a Winter Games until this year, when it booked a contemporary arts space in Milan, the main host city, and called it Casa Brazil.
The space was filled Saturday with more than 200 fans who communed in anticipation of Pinheiro Braathen’s history-making moment.
The significance of the victory was enough to push Claudinei Quirino, a former Olympic sprinter for Brazil, to tears. Taking a moment, and a sip of beer, Quirino said the young skier had entered a pantheon of Brazilian celebrity reserved for few.
“Brazil has many problems, but in this moment, with this medal we can forget everything and he’s given Brazilians what we need,” Quirino said.
Before the Olympics, there were reports that Pinheiro Braathen, who used to compete for Norway, had clashed with the more rigid rules enforced on its athletes by the Norwegian ski team and its Olympic committee. Among other things, Pinheiro Braathen said he wanted more freedom to work with his own sponsors. He left the Norwegian team in 2023 and joined the Brazilian team the following year.