Experienced campaigner Mitchell Gourley, a Paralympian at four Winter Games since Vancouver 2010, scored the biggest win of his career when he became World Champion at the 2017 IPC Alpine Skiing Worlds at Tarvisio in Italy.
That year, he won a slew of awards, including the Ski and Snowboard Australia Para-athlete of the year, Victorian Institute of Sport Elite Athlete with a Disability Award, Victorian Disability Sport and Recreation Awards – Male Sportsperson of the Year, Australian Institute of Sport Para Performance of the Year and was named, alongside Joany Badenhorst, Co-captain of the Australian Team for the 2018 Winter Paralympics.
It had been a long journey for Gourley, who had looked primed for success as early as the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Games after his impressive two gold, three silver and one bronze medal haul throughout the 2013/14 IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup Series.
Despite working hard to improve on his results from Vancouver 2010, Gourley struck an unbelievable run of bad luck in Sochi, recording three DNFs (did not finish) in the men’s Giant Slalom, Slalom and Super-G, and a fifth and seventh place finish in the Super Combined and Downhill, respectively.
His hopes of winning a Paralympic medal in Sochi dashed, Gourley turned his attention towards PyeongChang 2018, where he came fifth in the Men’s Super Combined Standing, sixth in the Men’s Slalom Standing, eighth in the Men’s Giant Slalom Standing, 12th in the Men’s Super-G Standing and did not finish in the Men’s Downhill Standing.
Gourley contested in five events at his fourth and final Paralympic Games. After having carried the Australian flag at the Opening Ceremony, he began his campaign with the Men’s Standing Downhill to finish in 20th place with a time of 1:22.21 (+7.29 seconds behind gold medallist Arthur Bauchet of France). In the Men’s Standing Super G event on Day 2, he crashed out to record a DNF. In the Men’s Standing Super Combined event, he finished with combined time of 1:59.26 to place 13th (out of 36). He finished in 10th place in the Men’s Standing Giant Slalom, 3.87 seconds behind gold medallist Santeri Kiiveri of Finland. Closing his campaign with the Men’s Standing Slalom event, a slight mistake saw him record a DNF in his second run.
Amid his competitive career, Gourley has been an Athlete Representative on the World Para-alpine Skiing Sport Technical Committee and has a Master of Business (Sport Management) from Deakin University in Melbourne after earlier completing a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Melbourne in 2014.
When he’s not skiing, Gourley also enjoys cycling, mountain biking, climbing and doing crosswords.
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