The Australian Paralympic team will hit the snow in Beijing in what is shaping up as an exciting games for Australia.

With the opening ceremony on Channel 7 on Friday night from 11.00pm, the rest of the games can be viewed on the 7Plus website.

The Australian Paralympic Team’s two most experienced athletes, Mitchell Gourley and Melissa Perrine, who have competed alongside each other at the highest level for more than a decade, will carry the flag into the National Stadium for the Opening Ceremony of the games on Friday.

The announcement was made at the Team’s headquarters at the Paralympic Village at Yanqing, where most of the team will compete in the Para-alpine skiing events, starting on Saturday.

“Mel and Mitch are almost an institution in this team. The longevity they’ve had in their careers is amazing. Both started in Vancouver in 2010,” Chef de Mission Kate McLoughlin said.

“Mitch is incredibly well respected within the international snow sports community in the Para space. He’s a representative on the Athlete Commission for World Para-Alpine Skiing, he’s on the Paralympics Australia Athlete Commission, he’s got that leadership quality and you could just sense when you came into the Village that there’s this great respect for Mitch.

“Mel’s an inspiration to the other athletes, not just because of the way she goes about her skiing but also the way she’s been able to balance her life with international skiing. She’s got a number of degrees and travels the world competing. For a young athlete, to see how they can mix elite sport and also have a path for when they’ve retired, it’s pretty impressive and something I know they all look up to.”

Whereas in Japan the team was represented at the Opening Ceremony by the two Summer Team Captains and McLoughlin as Chef de Mission, everyone in the Australian Winter Team was offered the opportunity to march at the Beijing 2022 Opening Ceremony.

Those competing in the downhill events the following day – Sam Tait, Patrick Jensen and Amelia Hodgson – won’t march, as well as Para-snowboarder Ben Tudhope, who is staying at the Paralympic Village at Zhangjiakou. Gourley will back up to compete in the downhill on Saturday after, he said, he enjoyed the training runs so much.

“I’m never going to get the opportunity again to ski 130 kilometres an hour down a hill with the whole thing closed and perfect safety netting from top to bottom,” he said. “I might as well take that chance. It’ll be a bit of a shorter sleep, that’s all.”

Australia have sent a strong team to Beijing, including seven alpine skiers, two sighted guides and one snowboarder.

PyeongChang 2018 dual bronze medallist Melissa Perrine and fellow three-time Paralympian Mitchell Gourley are the most experienced members of the team, which features six male athletes, two female athletes and two female sighted guides.

The youngest member of the team is Para-snowboarder Ben Tudhope 22, who made his Paralympic debut at Sochi 2014 aged just 14. Tudhope won two gold medals recently on the World Cup and finished on the podium at every SBX Para World Cup event this season.

Tudhope is the only snowboarder in the Team. All Australia’s other representatives will compete in Para-Alpine Skiing. Among them is Rae Anderson, who came fifth in the Javelin F37 classification at the Rio 2016 Summer Paralympics and joins a select group of athletes who have successfully transitioned between seasonal sports at the elite level. Also named was Josh Hanlon, a former Greater Western Sydney Giants Academy footballer who will make his Paralympic debut at Beijing.

The other members of the team are sit skier Sam Tait, Jonty O'Callaghan and Patrick Jensen who will each compete at their second Paralympics, and sighted guides Amelia Hodgson and Bobbi Kelly who will each make their Games debut. Sit skier Sam Tait's family run the Corroboree Lodge in Perisher where Sam trains during the winter and Bobbi Kelly, a former racer who grew up in Perisher and Jindabyne and will guide for Melissa Perine.

Para-alpine skier Patrick Jensen, Sam Tait and Mitch Gourley will be the first Aussies to hit the slopes on Day 1 competing in the downhill.

All the action can be viewed on the 7Plus website here