Feb 14, 2016
Lone East Timor athlete has big dreams for sports
LILLEHAMMER, Feb 12 — He may be from a small country but young athlete Alexi Goncalves Goutt has big dreams for sports in East Timor.
Goutt is the Southeast Asian country’s lone representative at the Lillehammer Winter Youth Olympic Games 2016 (YOG), set to compete in four Alpine skiing events. He is also East Timor’s first young athlete to participate in the Winter Youth Olympics.
“It’s pretty great and unique to be the first one doing it. But I’m just hoping it’s gonna bring more people of my country to come, do these sports, participate and win medals. I just want to encourage the people of my country to pursue not only business, but also sports.”
Gout added that, by participating in Lillehammer 2016, he wants to change people’s perspectives of his country.
“I wanna make everybody know where my country is. I want people to remember that that is the country where this skier is and not just remember that it was a country that went through a civil war.”
His father, a French national, taught and encouraged him to pursue skiing. His mother, Carolina De Mascarenhas (TLS), who is East Timor’s chef de mission to Lillehammer 2016, has been supporting him all the way. His brother, Yohan Goncalves Goutt (TLS), was the country’s first winter Olympian during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
“My mom is here to help me and push me to show the world that our country exists too. We’re here even if we’re very small,” he added.
According to Mascarenhas, East Timor being a tropical country, there are many challenges to pursuing winter sports.
“First of all, in our country, there’s no such word for ski. We call them snow skates. In our language, it doesn’t exist so that’s the first one. Then we are so far away so we need to be in Europe to train or somewhere in South America when it is European summer. Apart from that, it’s funding. We struggle for funding and sponsorship,” she said.
Still, Mascarenhas is hopeful her sons’ participation in the Olympics will encourage more Timorese to pursue winter sports.
“It is not always simple but we are hoping to promote. We have a lot of Timorese people who actually live abroad so we are hoping that, even if they are second or third generation, those kids are going to represent our country. We have Timorese living in Canada, the US, in colder climates so we hope those people will be encouraged to take sports seriously, be disciplined, and participate,” Mascarenhas said.
Goutt has been training hard for his events in Lillehammer 2016.
“It’s a lot of training — skiing and physical training. In the morning, we go training with my coach. Then we have quick lunch and two hours rest. And then we have two to three hours of physical training.”
Beyond Lillehammer 2016, however, Goutt wants to create a bigger impact to East Timorese youth through sports.
“My plan would be to open a sports center, totally free, because 70% of our population is under 30 years old and 50% is under 25. There are so many young people who do nothing and just stay at home and survive. So I want to bring them to sports and show them their potential.”
By David Lozada, IOC Young Reporter (IOC Young Reporters)
