Barcelona“Is skiing a conservative sport? Yes, it always has been, but it’s changing. Now, I can’t waste my time answering those who criticize me. I have a lot to do,” explains Lucas Pinheiro Braathen (Oslo, 2000 ). In recent years, this young man from Norway has revolutionized the slopes both for the way he skis and for the way he lives, painting his nails in the colors of the LGBTI flag or wearing a skirt when he goes out. For young people who dream of being free, he opens a path.
This is the story of the boy who wanted to be like Ronaldinho and score goals playing football, but he ended up being the first skier born after the year 2000 to win the Glass Globe, which is given to the winners of the World Cup in skiing, at the World Cup finals held a few weeks ago in Andorra. Little joke, in Norway skiing is a religion. Despite being a country of less than six million inhabitants, it is the state that has won the most medals at the Winter Olympics. There are cities in the United States, China or Russia with more inhabitants than all of Norway, but the Scandinavians command the Olympic medal. Big skiing competitions generate more news in Norway than when the national football team plays. And now everyone is talking about Lucas, able to win the Glass Globe for the skier who has accumulated the most points throughout the season in the slalom events, ahead of his compatriot Henrik Kristoffersen.
Brrathen, who in the networks uses his second name, Pinheiro, to claim his Brazilian roots, breaks the mold both for his aggressive downhill style and for the way he understands the world. In fact, a few months ago he was attacked by conservative politicians and journalists when he spoke out about the The Jantelawen“, the law of Jante, a kind of law without legal value, but which has greatly influenced Scandinavian cultures in recent centuries, especially from the decade of the 30s of the XX century. Basically, it would be about social norms that advocate being modest, working hard, not believing yourself different or superior to a community. Braathen defined it as a “destructive, non-progressive” idea, as it makes people with different sensibilities suffer, attacking individual freedoms. The criticism he received was fierce, sometimes bordering on racism when he remembered that he was half-Brazilian.A few weeks later, critics saw him listen to Norway’s national anthem after winning the World Cup in slalom. .
From football to the tracks
To understand Lucas, you need to understand his life. When he turned 22, he explained that he had moved house 21 times. First, bound by family destiny. Then, by his own decision, since once the snow season ends, instead of buying a house he prefers to see the world, live in other cities and explore other passions such as music and fashion, DJing and designing his own clothes “When I was three my parents divorced. My mother is Brazilian and she took me to Brazil. But then my father got custody of me in Norway,” he explains. From an early age, he already spoke Norwegian, English and Portuguese. And with his Brazilian curls, he dreamed of being Ronaldinho Gaúcho, one of his heroes, in football teams from Oslo neighborhoods. But the father was in love with skiing and took his son around the world to ski. Nothing serious, it was more love for the mountain than a bet to make his son a champion. His job allowed him to work with a laptop, which he always set up near the slopes, whether in the United States, Argentina or Switzerland. For the father it was an ideal lifestyle, but for little Lucas it affected him, since “he had no roots, he was always the new boy in town, who once he adapted he left again”: “It affected- me. In the end I decided I shouldn’t adapt so much and try to be myself.” One of the doors to express oneself would be skiing.
When he was not even 10 years old, Lucas entered a ski school near Oslo where all the children were from different corners of the country. That summer his father took him skiing in Austria for a holiday, as there was a tournament with people from all over the world. Lucas liked that cosmopolitan atmosphere, full of people from all over the world with their stories and a common passion, snow. The ball started to fall away, as did the dreams of being like Ronaldinho. He discovered that he wanted to succeed in skiing and just be himself, Lucas Pinheiro Braathen. At 18, he was already national runner-up and four-time Olympic champion Kjetil André Aamodt advised the federation to bet on him. In his World Cup debut four months later, he was already on the podium. When the press asked him to introduce himself to the international audience, he replied: “I’m the next big sensation in skiing.” He was right, although he offended many conservative Norwegians with his high self-esteem.
A constellation of references outside the tracks
Lucas admits that his temper sometimes works against him: “If I don’t get something I really want, I can be very destructive.” In Norwegian skiing, where old champions are revered and the system for training new champions works, Lucas didn’t seem to fit. When asked about his references, instead of saying other skiers he said musicians, painters or, for example, Steve Jobs. “He’s my role model because he resisted the strict rules that dominated the conservative IT industry at the time. He broke out and stood up for what he believed in,” he explains. The press, however, insists on asking him for references within the sport. So he picked one. But he wasn’t a skier either, he was former American basketball player Dennis Rodman. “He was playing for the greatest basketball team in the world, the Chicago Bulls, and he had all the eyes of the world on him, but he didn’t care. At the end of the day, he was the one who had to make the rebounds, and not the journalists, the coach or the fans. I see it the same way. Family members, coaches, teachers, federations… everyone has an opinion. And you have to listen to them all. But you have to decide for yourself, because in the end only you you can win a race. In the end you’re left alone when it’s time to go down the track,” he says.
And like Rodman, Lucas wants to be free off the court. And like Rodman, he dresses and does his hair the way he likes, even if they criticize him. A fashionista, she posted a photo on Instagram wearing a long skirt. The web was filled with homophobic attacks. He responded by painting his nails in the colors of the rainbow flag. Despite the fact that he has never wanted to explain whether he is homosexual or bisexual, he does defend the freedom of each person to live his life as he feels. “I would like to change that, in Norway and skiing. To be an inspiration to someone, like for example to a child who wants to paint his nails. That a child who wants to dress in a feminine way can dare- know how to do it. Or take a certain political position, even if the people around him do not share his opinion. The world of sport is often very conservative, strict, limited”, he defends.
Braathen, who is an ambassador for Atomic, the Austrian clothing brand with whom he has connected for a commitment to ecology and quality, continues to improve on the court at the age of 23. All this while the noise in the networks gets louder. “I always get insults because of the way I dress, my nails or my hairstyle. They say I look like a girl, they insult me. Usually, I ignore it. Sometimes I enjoy the insults, other times I need to not look at the networks,” explains one young man who takes refuge in art, buying paintings and photographs at exhibitions. In fact, after making friends with young painters, he has realized that perhaps he too expresses himself artistically on the ski slopes. “The road that leads me to victory is a kind of work of art. To be at the top of the leaderboard at the end of a tournament is pure joy, because to get there I remember my life, the education that I received. My cultural background. My friends. My parents. The schools I went to. Yes, the end result is the painting that everyone looks at, but behind it is a long journey made up of many small brushstrokes.” His journey continues.