Goutt Goncalves was born in France but has dual citizenship through his East Timorese mother.

He has amassed the requisite amount of points during official International Ski Federation (FIS) meetings to book his place in Sochi after turning down the opportunity to participate as a wildcard entry.

Goutt Goncalves' interest in skiing stemmed from his French father but he revealed his ambition was always to compete for his mother's homeland - a former Portuguese colony - which only became a fully sovereign state in 2002 after nearly two decades of conflict with Indonesia who had invaded the island in 1975.

"My mum brought me up with a Timorese way of thinking, so it has given me a lot of heritage and, of course, Timorese blood as well," said Goutt Goncalves.

The country's National Olympic Committee (NOC) was only established in 2007 and, prior to that, four athletes from East Timor had competed at Sydney 2000 under the International Olympic Committee (IOC) flag.

At Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 two athletes represented the country while at London 2012, marathon runners Augusto Ramos Soares and Juventina Napoleao took part in the Games.

Many of Goutt Goncalves' family and relatives live in Australia as East Timor is situated just 370 miles off the Northern Territory coast and its capital Darwin.

It was in Darwin in 1974 that Goutt Goncalves' mother and her family landed after leaving East Timor on an over-crowded fishing boat and she was granted refugee status by the Australian authorities.

Goutt Goncalves turned down a wildcard invitation for Sochi 2014 and qualified in his own right for the Games ©Yohann Goutt Gonclaves






Goutt Goncalves uses Australia as a base for Southern Hemisphere training and with the help of Australian authorities, family members and friends, the skier has set up two skiing federations to help develop the sport.

The Federation of Skiing in East Timor was formally recognised by FIS last year while the Australian Timor Leste Winter Olympic Association has also been set up.

According to Bill Zamut, from the Australian Timor Leste Winter Olympic Association, Goutt Goncalves wants to use his appearance in Sochi to project a positive image of his maternal homeland on the international sporting stage.

"He believes that the world has a very negative attitudes about East Timor because of the war, and because it is the world's second most poorest country," Zamut told Radio Australia.

"Something like 50 per cent of the population are illiterate, 40 per cent live below the poverty line and he thinks this is a great opportunity to get positive information out and improve the image of Timor Leste."

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