Gourley to go all out
GEELONG’S Australian co-captain Mitch Gourley is struggling to see the positives after a disappointing showing in the first of his five events at the Winter Paralympics.
But a day after failing to finish the downhill event when he missed a gate, the alpine skier improved to sit 12th in qualifying in yesterday’s super-G in PyeongChang.
The 26-year-old Barwon Heads athlete, at his third Games, is top 10 in the world in all his disciplines in the standing class and last year’s world champion in super-combined.
But he is worried PyeongChang’s alpine courses will prove unfavourable over the Games.
“The hill, it’s just a bit flatter than what I’d like,” Gourley said. “I’m a little guy and I’m in a low impairment class so the harder, the better for me.
“It’s not super steep, there’s no big jump or things like that. I go on a hill like that and I have to take risks.”
Gourley came unstuck after a sharp turn early on his run. But he said the early setback would not dent his confidence in maintaining an allor-nothing attitude into the rest of his races. “I obviously missed the gate there but I’m really happy with what I did, really happy with the intent,” he said.
“That’s what I did in Tarvisio (Italy, world championships) last year.
“Same thing, same process here and we’ll keep cracking at that.”
Vision-impaired skier Melissa Perrine, Australia’s other three-time Paralympian to compete on Saturday, will have to overcome her frustrations with placing fifth in the downhill. But she believes she will be better for it.
“What I can do is give myself half an hour to feel absolutely rat s--- ... it’s half an hour of self pity and throwing things, screaming, ranting, raving and after that it’s done and you’ve got to move on,” Perrine said.
“Downhill is the fastest of the speed events but super-G is also a speed event, so it gets you used to the speed and the hill, lets you feel out the hill a little bit.”
A bright spot on day one for Australia was sitting skier Tori Pendergast holding a medal position for most of her run before losing control in the final stages.
“I’m going to look at the splits and probably cry into the pillow tonight,” she said. “But it helps with that confidence going in, that if you put yourself in the right position, you can just go for it.”