Australian sporting comeback legend Steven Bradbury has revealed he remains uneasy with his iconic Olympic moment 16 years on.
The 44-year-old pulled off one of the most unlikely comebacks in Olympic history in Salt Lake City in 2002, when he won the 1000m short track individual final.
He trailed four racers for the entire event before they skittled helplessly to the ground at the final bend, allowing Bradbury to cruise across the line and win the southern hemisphere’s first ever Winter Olympic gold medal.
But in a first-person piece for Players Voice this week, Bradbury wrote that he still regrets standing on the top step of the podium to receive his medal.
Australian sporting comeback legend Steven Bradbury (pictured) has revealed he remains uneasy with his iconic Olympic moment 16 years on
The 44-year-old pulled off one of the most unlikely comebacks in Olympic history in Salt Lake City in 2002, when he won the 1000m short track individual final
‘I wasn’t sure if I wanted to accept the gold medal under those circumstances. At the time, going out there and standing up on top of the podium just didn’t feel right,’ he wrote.
He added: ‘I think if I was to do it again today, I’d go out there and I’d accept the gold medal but I wouldn’t stand up on the top of the podium. I’d just make the guy come around to the side and put it on me and stay off the podium.’
Bradbury wrote that he’s watched the ceremony many times over nearly two decades, noting that he looked ‘100 per cent apologetic more than anything’ when accepting the medal.
‘It just didn’t sit comfortably with me at that point, and if you see me at the medal ceremony, you can see that,’ he wrote.
He trailed four racers for the entire event before they skittled helplessly to the ground (pictured) at the final bend, allowing Bradbury to cruise across the line and win
In a first-person piece for Players Voice this week, Bradbury wrote that he still regrets standing on the top step of the podium to receive his medal
Bradbury said that he only began to enjoy winning the medal when the Australian national anthem started playing in front of 16,000 people in the stadium.
He added that he took the medal to acknowledge 14 years of hard work, rather than the one and a half minute race he won.
‘I guess really, there was no choice, there was nowhere else to go. I was going out there to accept it,’ he wrote.
He also reflected on his failed attempt at gold in 1994, when he was ironically taken out by another skater in the first round.
‘I wasn’t sure if I wanted to accept the gold medal under those circumstances. At the time, going out there and standing up on top of the podium just didn’t feel right,’ he wrote
Bradbury (pictured in 2015) said that he only began to enjoy winning the medal when the Australian national anthem started playing in front of 16,000 people in the stadium
‘I was actually the favourite for the individual event back in 1994 when we got the bronze as a team, but I was taken out and was left sitting there on the ice thinking, “this is bulls***”,’ Bradbury wrote.
‘Before Salt Lake, I felt I’d been screwed over in previous Olympics and some of that was my fault, some of that was other people’s faults and in some ways things just didn’t work out.
‘Do I believe that if you do right by others, if you work hard really hard at what you do, then karma comes into play at some point? Yeah, I do.’