Steven Bradbury

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For other persons named Steven Bradbury, see Steven Bradbury (disambiguation).

Steven Bradbury OAM (born October 14, 1973 in Camden, Sydney) is a former Australian short track speed skater.

Stamp of Bradbury and his 2002 Olympic gold medal.
Stamp of Bradbury and his 2002 Olympic gold medal.

Contents

[edit] 2002 Winter Olympic Games

Bradbury is most well-known for his memorable and unlikely gold medal win in the men's short track 1000 metres event at the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic Games, owing to three unlikely events occurring.

In the quarter-finals, Bradbury thought himself eliminated. He finished third (only the top two advance), but Marc Gagnon was disqualified, thus allowing Bradbury to advance to the semi-finals.

In his semi-final, Bradbury was in last place, well off the pace of the medal favourites. However, three of the other competitors in the semi-final crashed into each other, paving the way for him to take second place and thus allowing him through to the final.

Again well off the pace in the final, once more all four of Bradbury's competitors (Apolo Ohno, Ahn Hyun-Soo, Li Jiajun and Mathieu Turcotte) crashed out at the final corner, leaving a shocked Bradbury to take the gold medal, the first for Australia or any southern hemisphere country in an Olympic Winter Games event. (Alisa Camplin also won gold for Australia at the same Olympics).

In an interview after winning his gold, he said:

Obviously I wasn't the fastest skater. I don't think I'll take the medal as the minute-and-a-half of the race I actually won. I'll take it as the last decade of the hard slog I put in.

The "hard slog" included surviving two life-threatening accidents. During a 1994 race in Montreal, he had another skater's blade slice through his leg after a collision; he lost four litres of blood,[citation needed] and had to have 111 stitches to close the wound.[citation needed] In 2000, he broke his neck in a training accident, and spent the next six weeks in a halo brace.

Bradbury was acutely aware of the possibility of collisions after his semi-final race. In an interview after the race he said:

I was the oldest bloke in the field and I knew that, skating four races back to back, I wasn't going to have any petrol left in the tank. So there was no point in getting there and mixing it up because I was going to be in last place anyway. So (I figured) I might as well stay out of the way and be in last place and hope that some people get tangled up.[1]

In the same interview, he acknowledged that he never imagined a scenario in which all four of his competitors would actually fall.

See the video on YouTube

Bradbury had been the favourite going into the 1000m short track speed skating event at the 1994 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer, Norway but fell after colliding with a competitor. Bradbury later won a bronze medal at those Olympics as part of an Australian four-man short track relay team.

Bradbury's triumph was celebrated by Australia post issuing a 45-cent stamp of him, which followed on from their issuing stamps of Australian gold medallists at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Bradbury's stamp was issued on 20 February, four days after his victory[1] He received $20,000 for the use of his image. He said the fee "should get me a car. I haven’t had a car for a long time."[2] and later described having a stamp issued as "a great honour".[3]

[edit] His personal life

In 2005 Bradbury was a contestant in the second series of the Australian variety show Dancing with the Stars.

Bradbury has retired from competitive sport, and did not participate in the 2006 Winter Olympics as an athlete, however he did serve as a commentator.

In January 2007 Bradbury was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to sport as a Gold Medallist at the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

[edit] Motor racing career

Bradbury has recently turned his hand to motor racing, competing in the Queensland Formula Vee Championship. He has been competing in Formula Vee for a year and has already driven his way to two podium finishes in Queensland Championship events. Bradbury will compete against Australia's best Formula Vee drivers at the 2007 Formula Vee National Championships at Morgan Park Raceway, Warwick, Queensland.

[edit] Trivia

  • Bradbury's Olympic feat has entered the Australian vernacular in the phrase "doing a Bradbury", delivering a similar meaning to the more traditional Australian expression "to come in on the grouter" (which means to gain a financial advantage in a game of two-up, as a late-entering contestant, from the previous wagers of others), and meaning an accidental win or unexpected or unusual success. [2]
  • In the Matthew Reilly novel Hover Car Racer, the main character wins several of his races by listening to his father's advice of never giving up in case of the "Bradbury Principle" coming into action, where several leading racers are eliminated in a crash.
  • Immediately after he crossed the finishing line in his gold medal-winning race, television cameras showed a clearly shocked Bradbury distinctly mouthing the words "Oh my fucking God!" as he first came to realise the enormity of the situation, and the unlikeliness of his extraordinarily good fortune.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Aussie golds in Winter games bring more instant stamps by Glen Stephens. Linn's stamp news. March 11, 2002.
  2. ^ "Gold medallists get framed stamps" Australian Olympic Committee February 25, 2002.
  3. ^ "Steven Bradbury: Last Man Standing" by Gary Smart and Steven Bradbury ISBN 0-9757287-8-4, 2005.

[edit] Biography

"Steven Bradbury: Last Man Standing" by Gary Smart and Steven Bradbury ISBN 0-9757287-8-4, 2005.

[edit] External links

Olympic medal record
Men's short-track speed skating
Gold 2002 Salt Lake City 1000 m
Bronze 1994 Lillehammer 5000 m relay