Steven Bradbury
an international hero
Who is he?
It might be possible that you've never heard of Steven Bradbury. Steven Bradbury is an Australian sportsman. His sport is shorttrack. He won the 1000 m shorttrack at the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic Games. He had also already won a bronze medal at the Winter Olympics in 1994 with the shorttrack relay team.
He is an olympic champion
the road to the gold medal
Steven Bradbury, is according to my opinion, a real hero. He won his gold medal in Salt Lake City by a very special way. In the quarterfinals, he finished second, because the two who were skating ahead of him fell down. In the semifinals he was skating in the last position. In the last turn, a candidate pushed another candidate. There were two people who fell, so he ended third. But the one candidate who pushed the other one was disqualified, so he could go to the finals. In the finals he was skating in last position. In the last turn all other contestants fell down. He ended up finishing first.
That's already a little special but all the things that happened to him on his way to the gold medal are even more special. He almost died by losing 4 litres of blood and he broke his neck by falling on his head while he was training. In Australia there even is a saying: ' To do a Bradbury', it means ' to do something impossible'. All those things make him a true hero.
Some say he didn't deserve that medal, but I'm not one of them. Steven himself said:' I'm taking that god medal, but I'm not taking it for the 90 seconds of that race. I'm going to take it for the 12 years I lived up to that 90 seconds.'
Steven Bradbury: His road to gold in 2002 (Last Man Standing) - 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics