Brazil Wins South America's First Winter Olympic Medal

Brazil celebrated a landmark moment at the Winter Olympics today as Lucas Pinheiro Braathen stormed to gold in the Giant Slalom at Bormio, the nation’s first medal at the Winter Games.

The first to tackle the Olympic run on the Stelvio slope, Braathen initially had little sense of how competitive his opening run had been. That changed quickly as racer after racer crossed the line well adrift, many more than two seconds back. Only a handful, including Swiss star and defending Olympic champion Marco Odermatt, came within touching distance, though even he finished nearly a second slower.

Armed with a commanding advantage and facing a course that continued to break down, Braathen, the final skier of the top-30 to race in the second run, kept his composure to secure victory by more than half a second.

His triumph is thought to be not only Brazil’s first in Alpine skiing but the first Winter Olympic medal ever claimed by any South American nation. Until now, despite the Andes’ prominence, South America, Africa and Antarctica remained the only continents without a Winter Games podium.

Brazil does not have any ski areas and on the rare occasions its Highlands do see snowfall it's a major tourist attraction.

The country does though, have many skiers, who ski in Argentina and Chile as well as on ski slopes around the world.

The country also has an indoor snow centre, Snowland, pictured above, with a second under construction. It also has a growing number of centres with ski machines for training and recreation, including the recently opened Born to Ski, (below) located in Vila Olímpia in the district of Itaim Bibi in São Paulo, which operates two SkiMachines imported from SkiMachine in The Netherlands. Its popularity has been such it is reported to have been fully booked for its first six months of operations.