Yeah this has nothing to do with metal, which is surprising for me. You're all probably about as interested in the Winter Olympics as I am, but I found this on the web today and thought it was pretty cool, considering it's from an American paper and they usually don't waste editorial space on anything that isn't American. It's pretty well-researched too. It's about that guy who won the gold medal after everyone else stacked it:
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From the Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted on Mon, Feb. 18, 2002
Speedskater's lucky break offset a few bitter blows
The accidental gold medalist
By Phil Sheridan
Inquirer Staff Writer
SALT LAKE CITY - If gold medals are going to fall from the sky, it only seems right that one should find the likes of Steven Bradbury.
The good-natured Australian will go down as perhaps the luckiest man in Olympics history. He was so far behind the pack in the 1,000-meter short-track speedskating race on Saturday night that, when the rest of the field was knocked out in a series of collisions, he was the only man on his skates.
Bradbury coasted across the finish line and into Australian sports history.
"I had a hell of a lot of luck tonight," Bradbury said.
And quite different from two previous competitions. In one, he nearly bled to death. In the other, he broke his neck.
How unlikely a winner was Bradbury? It would be going too far to say he wasn't fit to shine American favorite Apolo Anton Ohno's boots. But that's only because Bradbury makes Ohno's boots. Bradbury and a friend run the Revolutionary Boot Company and make the shoe part of ice skates.
On Friday night, Bradbury sent Ohno an e-mail. It didn't wish the American good luck or warn him that Bradbury was ready to challenge him. No, it asked Ohno for a favor.
"He wrote, 'If you win a medal, please give a shout out to RBC,' " Ohno said.
Ohno did win the silver medal, recovering from the crash to hurl himself across the finish line just after Bradbury's improbable victory.
"But I'm sitting here with the gold medal," Bradbury said after plugging RBC himself. "Unbelievable."
Bradbury was in the final only because of a similar collision that allowed him to win his semifinal heat. Going into the event, he had no expectations of a medal.
"I knew I didn't have the legs to compete with those other guys," he said.
But if Bradbury is to be remembered as lucky, it's only fair to note that there are two kinds of luck. And Bradbury, with his ready smile and spiky bleached hair, has had more than his share of the other kind.
He started skating as a child growing up in a suburb of Sydney. His father was a speedskater, and he strapped 3-year-old Steven into a pair of skates and got him started.
"My mum has a picture of me crying the first time I was on the ice," Bradbury said. "I guess I liked it better the second time, so I was fine."
He grew to be one of the top skaters in a country without a rich tradition in winter sports. Before Saturday, Australia had never won a gold medal in the Winter Olympics. Bradbury skated in the 1992 Olympics.
In 1994, he was on a relay team that won a bronze medal - his country's first medal in the Winter Games - in Lillehammer, Norway.
He was 21. The future looked bright.
It wasn't.
At a World Cup competition in Montreal a few months later, Bradbury was battling Canadian skater Fred Blackburn for first place in the 1,500 when the two got tangled and careened into the boards.
In the knot of limbs, Blackburn's skate was driven into Bradbury's right thigh.
"It severed all four quad muscles and the femoral [artery] and came out the other side," Bradbury said. "A lot of people have told me it was the worst short-track accident they've ever seen.
"I lost four liters of blood, of the six that I have. I guess I was lucky to survive. I was lying there, making myself stay conscious. I was afraid that if I lost consciousness, I would die. So I kept my eyes open, and they were finally able to stop the bleeding."
He kept skating, though, making it to the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
"I wasn't happy with my performance there," Bradbury said.
Two years later, Bradbury crashed again. This time, he went headfirst into the boards. His head was driven down, compressing his neck and breaking the C-4 and C-5 vertebrae.
"I had to wear a halo brace for over a month," Bradbury said. "I still have scars in my skull from the screws."
But he returned to skating.
Why?
"That's a good question," Bradbury said. "I guess I kept skating because I really wanted to skate in one more Olympics. I didn't like the way I skated in Nagano, and I didn't want that to be my last memory. I didn't come here to win medals, just to skate my best."
And that's why Bradbury was here. Not because he expected to win anything, but because he wanted to be a four-time Olympian. He wanted to compete despite the horrific injuries he had suffered.
So maybe - just maybe - that gold medal didn't find Bradbury by accident.
"Obviously," he said, "I've had some highs and lows in my skating career. But this is the ultimate way to finish, with a gold medal. I don't take this as a medal for a minute-and-a-half race that I won. I take it as a reward for all the hard work, the decade or more of work that I put in.
"I have mixed emotions about this. This is something I'm going to have to come to terms with, I guess. But those mixed emotions left my head when I was on that medal platform, and they started to play the Australian national anthem."
After these Games, Bradbury said, he will retire from competitive skating while he's in one piece.
"Short track is not an old man's sport," the 29-year-old said. "I think my dishes are done."
And sparkling like gold.
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From the Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted on Mon, Feb. 18, 2002
Speedskater's lucky break offset a few bitter blows
The accidental gold medalist
By Phil Sheridan
Inquirer Staff Writer
SALT LAKE CITY - If gold medals are going to fall from the sky, it only seems right that one should find the likes of Steven Bradbury.
The good-natured Australian will go down as perhaps the luckiest man in Olympics history. He was so far behind the pack in the 1,000-meter short-track speedskating race on Saturday night that, when the rest of the field was knocked out in a series of collisions, he was the only man on his skates.
Bradbury coasted across the finish line and into Australian sports history.
"I had a hell of a lot of luck tonight," Bradbury said.
And quite different from two previous competitions. In one, he nearly bled to death. In the other, he broke his neck.
How unlikely a winner was Bradbury? It would be going too far to say he wasn't fit to shine American favorite Apolo Anton Ohno's boots. But that's only because Bradbury makes Ohno's boots. Bradbury and a friend run the Revolutionary Boot Company and make the shoe part of ice skates.
On Friday night, Bradbury sent Ohno an e-mail. It didn't wish the American good luck or warn him that Bradbury was ready to challenge him. No, it asked Ohno for a favor.
"He wrote, 'If you win a medal, please give a shout out to RBC,' " Ohno said.
Ohno did win the silver medal, recovering from the crash to hurl himself across the finish line just after Bradbury's improbable victory.
"But I'm sitting here with the gold medal," Bradbury said after plugging RBC himself. "Unbelievable."
Bradbury was in the final only because of a similar collision that allowed him to win his semifinal heat. Going into the event, he had no expectations of a medal.
"I knew I didn't have the legs to compete with those other guys," he said.
But if Bradbury is to be remembered as lucky, it's only fair to note that there are two kinds of luck. And Bradbury, with his ready smile and spiky bleached hair, has had more than his share of the other kind.
He started skating as a child growing up in a suburb of Sydney. His father was a speedskater, and he strapped 3-year-old Steven into a pair of skates and got him started.
"My mum has a picture of me crying the first time I was on the ice," Bradbury said. "I guess I liked it better the second time, so I was fine."
He grew to be one of the top skaters in a country without a rich tradition in winter sports. Before Saturday, Australia had never won a gold medal in the Winter Olympics. Bradbury skated in the 1992 Olympics.
In 1994, he was on a relay team that won a bronze medal - his country's first medal in the Winter Games - in Lillehammer, Norway.
He was 21. The future looked bright.
It wasn't.
At a World Cup competition in Montreal a few months later, Bradbury was battling Canadian skater Fred Blackburn for first place in the 1,500 when the two got tangled and careened into the boards.
In the knot of limbs, Blackburn's skate was driven into Bradbury's right thigh.
"It severed all four quad muscles and the femoral [artery] and came out the other side," Bradbury said. "A lot of people have told me it was the worst short-track accident they've ever seen.
"I lost four liters of blood, of the six that I have. I guess I was lucky to survive. I was lying there, making myself stay conscious. I was afraid that if I lost consciousness, I would die. So I kept my eyes open, and they were finally able to stop the bleeding."
He kept skating, though, making it to the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
"I wasn't happy with my performance there," Bradbury said.
Two years later, Bradbury crashed again. This time, he went headfirst into the boards. His head was driven down, compressing his neck and breaking the C-4 and C-5 vertebrae.
"I had to wear a halo brace for over a month," Bradbury said. "I still have scars in my skull from the screws."
But he returned to skating.
Why?
"That's a good question," Bradbury said. "I guess I kept skating because I really wanted to skate in one more Olympics. I didn't like the way I skated in Nagano, and I didn't want that to be my last memory. I didn't come here to win medals, just to skate my best."
And that's why Bradbury was here. Not because he expected to win anything, but because he wanted to be a four-time Olympian. He wanted to compete despite the horrific injuries he had suffered.
So maybe - just maybe - that gold medal didn't find Bradbury by accident.
"Obviously," he said, "I've had some highs and lows in my skating career. But this is the ultimate way to finish, with a gold medal. I don't take this as a medal for a minute-and-a-half race that I won. I take it as a reward for all the hard work, the decade or more of work that I put in.
"I have mixed emotions about this. This is something I'm going to have to come to terms with, I guess. But those mixed emotions left my head when I was on that medal platform, and they started to play the Australian national anthem."
After these Games, Bradbury said, he will retire from competitive skating while he's in one piece.
"Short track is not an old man's sport," the 29-year-old said. "I think my dishes are done."
And sparkling like gold.
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