Georgia Godwin may be the queen of Australian gymnastics, but sitting on a throne is not on her to-do list.

She is the 2022 Commonwealth Games all-around gold medallist, seven-time national all-around champion, a stalwart on representative teams for a decade, and now priming herself for the Paris Olympics.

To Godwin however, there is more to do inside and outside the gym. First and foremost, she wants to make sure Australians don’t take artistic gymnastics – and its craft, composition and downright difficulty – for granted.

“When I try and explain gymnastics to someone … we’ve got names for all our skills and it comes across a bit like jargon,” she said. “But when you break a skill down, the audience actually gets to understand how difficult a skill is.”

Since being recognised last year as the fifth Australian woman to have a skill named after her, Godwin has done dozens of interviews. But she said she never gets bored, or frustrated, in answering questions about the move.

“Every single time I get asked, it’s a nice reminder that, yeah, I’ve done this really cool thing,” she said. “My skill took over a year from trying it for the first time to actually performing it, so it’s not something that just happens overnight.”

Media engagements typically begin with the same first question: what exactly is “the Godwin”? “Everyone just looks at me with blank faces,” Godwin said.

The Godwin involves a handstand on the uneven bars, looping forward and down under, and then back up into a handstand. The Australian added an extra full turn before arriving back in the handstand.

It’s difficult to understand because, according to Godwin, it’s difficult to do. And that’s largely the challenge – and opportunity – with attracting a wide audience to gymnastics and helping them appreciate the intricacies of the sport.

“It’s not just ‘a flip on the beam’,” she said. “The beam is actually 15cm wide. It’s however many years to actually achieve that skill. It’s not something that we just thought up and do. So I think it’s important to explain what the skill is, and all the intricacies of it, and how long it’s taken to get there.”

Godwin speaks with an authority that can only come with experience. At 26, she is the senior member of an Australian team that included two 16-year-olds last year.

While in the past gymnasts may have been moved along as they reached their 20s, Godwin is now recognised to be at her physical and mental peak. Indeed, Uzbek Oksana Chusovitina competed at age 46 at the 2021 Games where, for the first time in more than 50 years, there were more non-teenagers than teenagers competing in women’s artistic gymnastics.

Godwin, who was born to a Japanese mother and Australian father, describes herself as ageing “like a fine cheese”. (She is not a wine drinker.) “I’m trying to enjoy every single moment and just see where it takes me,” she said. “As I’m getting older, I’m just looking at training a little bit differently.”

Last year the Queenslander made the bold step of leaving her longtime coaches at Delta Gymnastics in Brisbane and moving to Canberra, to train under coach Josh Fabian at the Australian Institute of Sport. Godwin said the facilities and medical resources in the capital were an attraction, but also “change is good.”

“It was my decision all along, and kind of last minute,” she said. “I approached the coach [Fabian] and was like, ‘hey, this is what I’m thinking, I’d love to give it a go, what are your thoughts?’”

It was a big risk given she had won two gold medals at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022. But the relocation appears to have paid off. Under Fabian she perfected the Godwin, and last year helped Australia qualify for the Olympics team event for the first time since 2012.

Thanks in part to Godwin’s consistent performances across vault, bars, beam and floor at the world championships in Belgium, Australia can now send five gymnasts to Paris. It means Godwin, who qualified for the Tokyo Games as one of just two Australians in women’s artistic gymnastics, will now be joined by four teammates.

“As a team we qualified in ninth at the world championships, and that is one spot out of a team final, so we’re looking really strong,” she said. “We’ve really bonded as a group so hopefully we can make that team final at Olympics and show the world what Australia can do.”

While she is widely expected to be selected, Godwin must first compete in the national championships in May. And she continues to juggle training with 15 hours a week of part-time work as well as study in medical imaging.

“I plan on cutting back a bit but I’m still planning on doing study over the Olympics, just because it’s a nice way to give my brain a break from the gymnastics,” she said.

Godwin has no official plans after Paris, apart from giving her body and brain a short rest. But she is not ruling out continuing on to Los Angeles 2028, and even revealing the Godwin, mark II.

“I’ve got a few more interesting moves up my sleeve,” she said. “But you just have to watch this space.”