Australian Valentino Guseli’s grandfather learned to ski on a shovel, now he’s trying to win Olympic gold

Snowboard enthusiast Val Guseli’s love for the ski slopes can be traced back two generations.

His paternal grandfather, Guido Guseli, was an Italian immigrant who moved to Australia in his youth in 1958 and learned to paddle ski.

His maternal grandfather, John Sanders, was a ski patroller at Perisher.

“No no [granddad] “He tells me the story of going down in the snow with my father and going down with shovels like square-blade shovels,” says Guseli. “If you hold the handle and put your feet to the side, you can go down in the snow.

Guseli has good reason to reflect on his Italian heritage.

The 2026 Winter Olympics will be held across Italy and the 20-year-old aims to be there by competing in three disciplines (halfpipe, slopestyle and big air), although he has not yet qualified.

Guse people began migrating to Cooma, Australia, in the 1950s. Two brothers worked at the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Project and the third worked as a shoemaker in town.

Those were difficult times. Bars and brothels lined the streets, and the influx of immigrant workers increased the population.

In April 1958, Antonio, one of the Guseli brothers, died at the age of 27.

As the story goes, multiple workers were standing on a lifting platform, suspended above the deepest shaft in the southern hemisphere, when a crane broke and they fell to their deaths.

He did not live to see his family (his parents and four other siblings) emigrate to Australia six months later. One of them was Guseli’s 13-year-old grandfather, Guido.

The Guseli family moved from Cooma to Shepparton in 1961, where Guido met and married Glenda Carrafa, the daughter of Italian immigrants.

The couple returned to NSW in the late 1980s, started a swimming pool construction business and opened a nursery in Kianga on the south coast. This is where Val Guseli’s father, Ric, learned to navigate the slopes.

“We used to go to Kiandra (the gold rush town in Kosciuszko National Park) and do some fishing,” Ric recalls.

“I remember jumping on a square-bladed shovel because they were attached to the work truck and sliding down the hill on it.

“My dad actually showed us this long before I even knew what snowboarding was. I’m not even sure it was invented at that stage.”

By the time he was 13, Ric was alternating between surfing in Kianga and snowboarding in the mountains.

He later met his future wife, Kristen Sanders, and began spending winters with her family in Perisher.

“Val was in the snow every year of her life, from pulling her on a sled when she was one and two to putting her on a skateboard when she was three,” Ric says. “He got used to it pretty easily.”

Guseli quickly became a child prodigy, and when he turned seven, the family advised him to test his talents abroad.

“I actually didn’t know he was a first-class person until we took him to America, and then I thought, ‘Damn, I’ll just have to take on less work and travel with him,’” recalls Ric, who runs the family’s pool-building business.

Father and son would spend two and a half months of the year abroad, while Kristen and their daughter Ali would stay at their home in Dalmeny.

But they also found a remarkable way to optimize their son’s time in Australia. They constructed a homemade jump consisting of a 50-meter dash and a 50-meter airbag on a 36-degree incline.

“The splash is on my dad’s property,” Ric says. “I designed it, designed it and had it made in China.

“I calculated that when you factor in all the materials and labor (there were lots of volunteers) it cost us about $180,000.

“I started with something much smaller. But when I did the last one, it was the largest airbag snowboard jump in the world.”

Modeled on similar installations in Japan and Korea, this breakthrough helped Guseli succeed in major air events.

“Everyone thought he was a halfpipe rider, but he’s winning World Cups in three different disciplines,” his father says.

Homemade jumping has not only allowed Guseli to reach greater heights (he holds the snowboarding world record at 11.53 meters) but also allowed him to spend more time with his family.

“This meant we weren’t going to spend as much as $10,000 to go to Japan for two weeks to use this type of facility,” says Ric.

Guseli says the airbag provides a softer landing and a safer environment than trying new maneuvers in the snow.

Guseli, the youngest member of the Australian team who made her debut at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing at the age of 16, still must qualify for the 2026 Olympics.

He has until the end of January to make the cut. Competitors must place in the top 30 based on their best six results.

But he will have to overcome difficulties. Guseli suffered a major setback in December last year when he ruptured his ACL during a major air event in Beijing.

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The injury meant he was sidelined during last year’s qualifying season.

“Basically, he has half the time to qualify as any other athlete in the world,” Ric says. “This is a big job, and I think there are people out there who think it can’t be done.”

But Guseli made an impressive return to the halfpipe arena on Friday, taking bronze at Copper Mountain in the United States.

“This is my first halfpipe competition of the season, I’ll have some time to train now and spend some time doing these bigger tricks, so I’ll be ready to take it on when the Olympics get closer,” he said.

Guseli says he was able to overcome any mental hurdles related to his injury.

“I’m fine,” he says. “It sucks to have your season taken away from you and it will make qualifying a little more difficult, but I’ll still do everything I can to make sure it goes smoothly.”

Winter Olympic Games will be broadcast on television 9Network, 9Now And Stan Sports.

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