Mitchell Gourley

Experienced campaigner Mitchell Gourley looked primed for success at the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Games, following his impressive two gold, three silver and one bronze medal haul during the 2013/14 IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup Series.

Despite working hard to improve on his results from Vancouver 2010, the Barwon Heads local 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, Mitchell turned his attention towards PyeongChang 2018.

At the 2015 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships in Panorama, Canada, he placed fourth in the Giant Slalom and fifth in the Super-G, and at the 2017 World Para-alpine Skiing Championships in Tarvisio, Italy, he left his competition behind in the Super Combined to be crowned world champion.

Continuing to impress in the back end of the 2016/17 season, Mitchell, a second-term Athlete Representative of the World Para-alpine Skiing Sport Technical Committee, won gold in the Giant Slalom at the 2017 IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup in Hakuba, Japan, and finished just 0.67 seconds from silver in the Super-G at the 2017 IPC World Cup Finals in PyeongChang, South Korea.

Finding himself in a traffic jam of competitors between second and eighth place, who all finished within 1.06 seconds of one another, Mitchell clocked a time of 1:33.33 to place sixth in his race.

Off the slopes, Mitchell is studying a Master of Business (Sport Management) at Deakin University in Melbourne, after completing a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Melbourne in 2014.

Training out of Thredbo, New South Wales, Mitchell also enjoys cycling, mountain biking, climbing and doing crosswords.