Georgia Gunew

Pressure, Trust And Breaking Bad Habits

For starters, it’s pronounced ‘Gun-ev’.  

The other thing you need to know about Georgia Gunew is that this Brisbane-based beachgoer is happiest tearing down a ski run at speeds approaching 100 kilometres per hour, trusting her guide Ethan Jackson to act as her eyes.  

“It feels amazing,” she said. “It feels pretty out of control. You’re holding on for dear life. 

“Ethan, my guide’s, yelling at me. He’s like, ‘You got this! Come on!’ And I’m like, ‘OK, I’ve got this! Let’s go!’ Getting across the finish line, every time, you just think ‘I made it’.” 

Gunew is being humble. After her fledgling career was put on hold during Covid, she was included in the national set-up in 2023 and that northern season won her first medal on the World Cup circuit, in the slalom. In the 2024-25 season, she added another two medals, in slalom and giant slalom, placing her firmly in contention for a spot on the Australian Paralympic Team for Milano Cortina.  

Competing on the big stage in Para-snowsport was an unexpected outcome for Gunew, who was a recreational skier with her family as a child but applied her competitive spirit to hockey.  

“Hockey was a big part of my life, but then it was just too tricky to play with a tiny little ball, like, 100 metres away,” she said of her vision loss to the genetic condition Stargardt’s macular dystrophy, which manifested at 10 years of age and accelerated when she was 15. 

“I had to try and find another outlet when I couldn’t play hockey anymore. My grandma found an ad for Snow Australia and she said, ‘Why don’t you give this a go?’ 

“Race skiing is very different to recreational skiing. I had a lot of bad habits, I still do. Trying to break those and just ski as fast as you can every time you’re on a course has been a learning curve for me, but I’m really enjoying it.” 

Her guide, Jackson, a former national junior skier, is major support.  

“I’m flying down a mountain at 100 k’s and if I didn’t trust him … I think the trust that we need to have is there,” Gunew said. “We spend a lot of time with each other and he’s very good for putting up with me because I can be quite frustrating and I have a lot of energy. 

“Confidence for me is a really big one because sometimes I struggle with that a little bit. We’re at the top of the racecourse and you only have 60 seconds to put down everything you’ve been working on for the last however many months. 

“It’s a lot of pressure up there. So just remembering why we do it and everything we’ve been working on is, I think, really starting to pay off, which is fantastic.”