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The 25-year-old from Queensland’s Gold Coast was making her international return to artistic gymnastics competition, having last appeared at the 2022 World Championships in Liverpool, England. Godwin finished 16th overall in the individual all-around competition and was part of Australia’s 10th place effort in the team’s event. Prior to that, she won gold in the all-around competition and the vault at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Prior to her World Challenge Cup appearances, Godwin made a career-defining decision during the off-season to leave Delta Gymnastics and move to Canberra to train at the Gymnastics Australia National Training Centre at the Australian Institute of Sport. A decision Godwin feels is already paying dividends.
“Everything has been going well since I moved to the AIS”, she told SBS Sport. “I have a really good connection with my coach, Josh Fabian, and all the staff down there, so it’s been a really nice change.”
The decision to contest the FIG World Challenge Cup events in Tel Aviv and Osijek were designed to try out some new routines, as well as tweaking some tried and proven ones in the lead-up to the 2023 World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium.
“My expectations prior to heading overseas were to see where I was at with my gymnastics,” Godwin said.”I didn’t have any expectations, results-wise, but to come away with the results I achieved was more than everything I expected.”
Godwin came away from the Tel Aviv World Challenge Cup with two gold medals in the vault and floor disciplines, as well as a silver in the uneven bars. The only discipline she didn't get a medal in was the balance beam, after struggling to execute one of her acrobatic sequences. Godwin would finish fourth overall.
She would bounce back strongly in Osijek, executing said sequences successfully and claiming a well-deserved gold medal with a 13.900 score, eclipsing the 13.733 score set by American gymnast Skye Blakely at last year’s World Championships.
Georgia Godwin scored a 13.900 to win gold on the balance beam in Osijek. Her score would've won her gold at last year's World Championships.
“I just wanted to show the world what I’ve been working on in the off-season and what I’m capable of.”
Godwin would also claim back-to-back gold medals in the vault and back-to-back silver medals in the uneven bars, but left her best performance to last with an outstanding floor routine to take out back to back gold medals with a 13.400 score, 0.100 ahead of Canada’s Denelle Pedrick.
Her choice of music for her routine came from her long appreciation for Canadian singer, Michael Buble. She chose an instrumental cover of his interpretation of ‘Feeling Good’ and it’s a song that she has a deep emotional attachment to.
“I grew up with Michael Buble because my dad was a fan, so it’s nice to be able to use those good memories growing up and show the emotion when I’m performing.
“You need to be able to connect with the music and the choreography attached to it, because it's really hard to find that emotion when you’re not connected to that piece of music. So that’s one of the main things that my choreographer and myself wanted with this piece of music. We wanted to make sure that this piece of music is mine and that I was able to connect with it.”
Godwin will now return home and start training for the upcoming World Championships in Belgium in October, with the end goal being the Paris Olympics in 2024.
You can watch the full interview with Georgia Godwin on the SBS Sport website, as well as catch up on extended highlights from the FIG World Challenge Cup in Tel Aviv and Osijek EXCLUSIVELY on SBS On Demand.
