BORMIO, Italy (AP) — Brazilian ski racer Lucas Pinheiro Braathen leads the Olympic giant slalom Saturday after the first of two runs and is in position to win South America’s first medal at a Winter Games.
The final run will be held later Saturday. The top 30 will go in reverse order based on time, meaning Pinheiro Braathen races at No. 30.
The first skier on the Stelvio course, Pinheiro Braathen took advantage of the smooth surface to finish in a time
of 1 minute, 13.92 seconds. His fast run resulted in a 0.95-second lead over Swiss racer Marco Odermatt, who’s the defending Olympic champion in the event. The next-closest is Odermatt's teammate, Loic Meillard, who's 1.57 seconds behind.
Pinheiro Braathen is the fun-loving, samba-dancing skier who’s ready to get this party started. On the back of his helmet, he has in big letters “Vamos Dancar” — “Let’s Dance.”
Fittingly enough, it’s Carnival season, too, a festival of parades, masquerades and partying made famous in places such as Brazil.
Pinheiro Braathen originally represented Norway, where his father is from. But he switched over torepresent Brazil, where his mother is from, last season.
He’s already accomplished plenty of “firsts” with his new country: First Brazilian Alpine racer to finish on a World Cup podium last year and first ever World Cup win for the country this season.
In the lead-up to the Olympics, Pinheiro Braathen chatted about the pressure of this particular “first.”
“I’d be a liar if I said it was easy, that’s for sure,” he said. “It is everything but easy. And that’s the very beauty of it. The pressure that I bring in coming into these Games is something that I try to embrace with gratitude. Because if I wasn’t at the start gate dealing with pressure, I wouldn’t really be bringing change.”
In Milan, Braathen’s fans, decked out in green and yellow, crowded into “Casa Brasil” as they waited to watch his second run on a large screen. The first run was early, but final run could be the perfect time for revelers to toast to his success with a “caipirinha,” which is Brazil's national cocktail made with cachaça, lime, sugar and ice.
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Associated Press Writer Stefanie Dazio in Milan contributed to this report
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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing and AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
