It’s never over until it’s really over
I’d really only gone there for a couple of hours off.
It had been a brutal working week in Salt Lake City. And if you don’t remember why, Google “Judge, French, Pairs Skating, Scandal.”
It wasn’t until late on the first Friday of the 2002 Olympics that the International Skating Union, essentially under orders from the International Olympic Committee, had decided that Jamie Sale and David Pelletier would be “rewarded” with a second gold medal they should have won alone five days earlier.
So, just about every Olympic writer, especially one with a major in figure skating, was semi-catatonic from coveragefatigue by the time the first Saturday night of the Games rolled around.
So, I decided to take a busman’s holiday and go see the men’s 1,000 metres final in short-track — the other skating held at the Salt Lake Ice Centre — because I’d followed it fairly closely since Dave Perkins, the great and ludicrously witty Toronto Star columnist and I had been at most of the short-track events together during the sport’s Olympic introduction at Albertville a decade earlier.
We loved it for its entertainment, unpredictability and close resemblance to how you raced as kids: “Hey, first around the rink wins.”
Oh, the 2002 final was indeed entertaining, and unpredictable. And the first around the rink won. In fact, the only guy remaining on his feet all the way around the rink won.
The 1,000-metre final had a field of five men, four of whom were clearly already headed for legendary status. But it was the fifth who got their first.
The four favourites in the final were: Canada’s Mathieu Turcotte, who’d won a bronze four years earlier and would eventu-
ally retire with three Olympic medals and seven world championship gold medals; China’s Li Jiajun, the two-time, and reigning, world champion; Apolo Anton Ohno, the face of American short-track who eventually would win more (eight) Winter Olympic medals than any U.S. athlete; and South Korea’s Ahn Hyun-Soo, who was just 16, and would go on to win three gold medals in the 2006 Games, then another three in ’14 at Sochi, skating for Russia as Victor An.
Then there was Steven Bradbury, of Australia. He had contributed heavily to the first Australian Winter Olympic medal in any sport, back in 1994, winning a bronze in the men’s short-track relay. He was a fine skater, but on his way out, and by his own admission “I was probably the eighth-best in the event.”
Bradbury had had a little short-track-type luck making the semifinal, and decided to hang back late in the final race, because he knew he couldn’t beat the top four. And his only chance was that maybe somebody would fall, or be disqualified and he could sneak onto the podium. Good plan.
With the front four bunched on the final turn, just 30 metres or so from the finish line, Bradbury was about 20 metres back and clearly relaxed — more relaxed than it shows in videos.
Then, this happened: Li tried to pass leader Ohno on the outside, but clipped his leg, knocking Ohno off balance and sending Li himself sliding into oblivion.
The collapsing Ohno then wiped out both Ahn and Turcotte. The trio fell hard to the ice and all three spun, helpless and flailing, to their right in a tightly wrapped huddle, then individually caromed like billiard balls off the padding on the side boards.
And Bradbury, watching in disbelief and barely having to pick up his leisurely pace, glided across the finish line to what has often been called The Most Unexpected Gold in History. (See the YouTube video of the same name.)
The drama didn’t end there, though. After Bradbury’s almost-apologetic strides across the line, Ohno struggled to his feet, immediately fell again and crawled across the finish line blade-first to take the silver. Turcotte also scrambled to his feet, but his butt was heading to the ice again just as he extended his skate for the bronze.
And the massive American audience, thinking Ohno had been jobbed (which was essentially true, except that’s the way short-track goes) booed and booed as the judges conferred.
Bradbury worried that the race might be re-skated, but when the scoreboard showed the official rankings, there he was: the first Winter Olympics gold medallist in Australian history.
He said at the news conference later that, given the way he won, he wasn’t going to punch the air in triumph.
But back home, Australians — most of whom hadn’t the vaguest notion about short-track — were going bonkers about the victory. It’s been called one of the great moments of Australian national unity in recent decades, and some have even called for its countrywide recognition every Feb. 16.
And “To Bradbury” and “To
Pull a Stephen Bradbury” have both become common Australian verbs, meaning to triumph when there’s no apparent reason to.
Ohno and Bradbury both eventually starred in their country’s versions of “Dancing With the Stars,” and both are in the media (Ohno on air, Bradbury in print) for Pyeongchang, where the men’s 1,000 metres final will be skated on Saturday.
As for a Canadian journalist who just wanted a couple of hours off ?
Of course he wrote. It’s in the DNA.
There was a great story to tell — that night, and forever.
Veteran Spectator columnist Steve Milton has pretty much seen it all in his 40 years covering sports around the world, and, in Being There, he will relive special moments from those stories, from the inside out, every Friday. If there’s a memorable sporting event you would like Steve to write about, let him know at smilton@thespec.com. Chances are, he was there.