Missing Skier & Olympic Hopeful Brittany George, 24, Has Been Found Dead In Australia
A traumatic injury kept her from going to the 2022 Olympics.
Brittany George dreamed of being at the Olympics this week as an aerial skier for Australia.
Instead, the 24-year-old has been confirmed dead in Brisbane, days after she was reported missing.
George was last seen alive on January 21 and her body was found six days later, but police only just revealed her identity on Friday, according to The Courier Mail newspaper. No cause of death has been released and the case is not being treated as suspicious.
George had represented Australia at several major international competitions from 2017 to 2020 and she was a member of the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia, reported The Independent.
But a major back injury derailed her career and forced her into early retirement.
Since then, she had been vocal about her struggles with mental health and navigating life without the sport that she'd dedicated her life to.
“It has literally been my whole life; I’ve been ‘the athlete’ from when I was 2 until when I was 20 or 21,” George said during a recent interview on the Couching the Mind podcast.
“I didn’t have an identity. I was labelled ‘the athlete’ from a very young age and just rode with it…everything went second-hand to sport.”
Constantine Gus, George’s father, shared a heart-wrenching message about his daughter with The Courier Mail and remembered her being born with her athletic skills.
“Her eyes were full of wonder, knowledge, understanding (beyond her years), and her pure soul was just flowing with love and compassion for everyone,” Gus said about his daughter.
Tributes to George have been pouring in on a GoFundMe page, which has been set up to help her family through their grief.
The page describes George as a “determined and courageous” person who was “always willing to support anyone who needed a hand with such selfless commitment.”
“It was an honour to be called her family or friend," it said.
