No South American country has ever won a medal at the Winter Olympics. Both athletes hope to change that on Saturday.

Alpine skier Lucas Pinheiro Braaten was born in Oslo to a Brazilian mother and Norwegian father and is ranked second in the world in both giant slalom and slalom. The competitions are scheduled to be held on Saturday and Monday as part of the ongoing Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.

Nicole Rocha Silveira, who was born in the southern tip of Brazil and moved to Canada when she was seven, is ranked ninth in the world for female skeletons. He has finished on the podium three times in World Cup races in the past two seasons and finished fourth at the 2025 World Championships.

She will compete in Cortina d’Ampezzo on Friday and Saturday, and the times of four runs (two each day) will be combined to determine the medalists.

At last week’s opening ceremony, Pinheiro Braaten and Silveira each raised the Brazilian flag in different locations.

Even though they both learned the sport in the Northern Hemisphere, they proudly wear their Brazilian colors.

Piñeiro Braaten was the world’s top-ranked slalom athlete and was active as a skier in his native Norway at the time, but he shockingly retired at the age of 23, two days before the start of the 2023-24 season. In a tearful press conference, he alluded to a longstanding conflict with the Norwegian Ski Federation over athletes’ marketing rights.

Pinheiro Braaten booked a one-way ticket to Brazil, a country he visited every year as a child. He became stranded on the island of Ilhabela outside São Paulo. After some time, he decided that he wanted to come out of retirement and ski for Brazil, and for this he obtained a release from the Norwegian federation.

“I fell in love with the sport over there (playing soccer on the streets of São Paulo), so to come full circle and be able to represent them at the World Cup of Sports means a lot,” he said in 2024. “Being able to dance on the snow is what I want to do.”

Pinheiro Braaten performed a samba in the Colorado snow as he became the first Brazilian skier to reach the podium at the 2024 Alpine World Cup. When he won the World Cup last November, he shouted “Vamos Brazil!” The national anthem “Gimno Nacional Brasileiro” was played for the cameras in the finish area. The Brazilian flag was raised as the sound rang out in Finland’s Arctic Circle. around his neck.

“Norway taught me how to be an athlete, how to endure the cold,” Pinheiro Braaten said. “Brazil taught me how to be myself.”

Silveira is also a standout in the sport. She races with skeletons. Athletes slide headfirst down the same ice chute as bobsledders and luger athletes.

Silveira, who also worked as a nurse at Calgary’s Alberta Children’s Hospital, will compete wearing a helmet with artwork of a Brazilian parrot wearing a stethoscope.

Her family did not plan to remain in Canada.

“As far as I remember, they were Googling the best cities to live and the first thing that came up was Miami,” Silveira said in 2024. “My dad went to Miami by himself to do some research. He thought there were already too many Brazilians in the area. Their second choice was Calgary.”

In 2017, she was a bodybuilder working at a supplement store and was talking to a customer who was part of the Brazilian bobsled team training in Calgary. One thing led to another and she jumped into bobsledding’s sister sport, skeleton.

In 2022, she placed 13th in her Olympic debut, the second-best result for a Brazilian athlete in an event at the Winter Olympics. Her best result was Isabel Clark’s ninth place in the 2006 Snowboard Cross.

“I think a top eight would be unbelievable,” Silveira said of the 2024 Milan-Cortina Games. “Of course we all dream of that medal.”