By Michael Wilbon

Monday, February 18, 2002; Page D01
 

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For every ridiculous scandal, like the one involving figure skating, there is at least one Winter Olympics story so wacky, so
out-of-the-ordinary and so revealing of the human spirit -- all at the same time -- that you can't wait to retell the tale. So here
goes: Steven Bradbury is the Australian short-track speedskater who won a gold medal late Saturday night when four superior
skaters in front of him all wiped out, leaving him essentially the last guy standing. That he gave Australia its first gold medal in
the Winter Olympics is a story in itself. That one of the guys who wiped out was gold medal favorite Apolo Anton Ohno of the
United States makes it even more fascinating. And that Bradbury nearly died on the ice twice, once from almost bleeding to
death and once from breaking his neck, makes it sublime.

Bradbury didn't come here looking to win a medal. He came to have, more or less, one last fling with his life's great passion,
and to drum up business for his Revolutionary Boot Company, which makes custom boots for speedskaters. In fact, on
Friday, less than 24 hours before the race, Bradbury e-mailed Ohno, who wears his RBC boots, to ask for a little
word-of-mouth endorsement help, what with the world's elite skaters all captive here. Bradbury's strategy, to hang back behind the leaders and wait for a catastrophe, was born of his realization before the race that, "I knew I didn't have the legs to match the other guys. . . . I was at the back of the field hoping for an accident."

It worked brilliantly. Ohno and three others wiped out, and before any restart could be called Bradbury had crossed the finish line, ahead of Ohno. Bradbury, who hadn't been thinking about medals when he arrived, had won gold. Even as he won the race he found himself thinking, "Hang on a minute; I think I just won."

Then came the hard part.

Bradbury had to reconcile how it happened. Even 24 hours later, on Sunday while talking to a throng of international reporters,
he was juggling the great high of his life with the facts of the race, which amounts to the pace car winning the Daytona 500. "I
don't know if what happened sits perfectly well in my stomach," he said. " . . . I'd like to have won the gold medal because I
could beat everybody, because I was the best skater. . . . Clearly, I wasn't the quickest guy on the ice, but the only guy
standing on his feet. I guess I'll have to come to terms with that."

Surely there ought to be somebody back home in Brisbane, or in Sydney where he grew up, who can convince Bradbury he is
completely worthy of the gold medal hanging around his neck if he looks at this as a lifetime achievement award. If there is
anybody in skating who needs not apologize, who surely must be owed some old-fashioned good luck, it is this kid.

In 1994, Bradbury, who won a relay bronze at the Lillehammer Games that year, suffered what bladeheads say is the most
serious accident ever seen in short-track racing. At the World Cup competition in Montreal, with little more than a lap
remaining in the 1,500-meter race, the Aussie caught his toe in the ice, propelled himself into the air, then fell on the skate of a
fallen Frederick Blackburn. The blade, Bradbury said, sliced through all four quadriceps muscles. The wound needed 111
stitches. While waiting for the ambulance to arrive, he was acutely aware of how seriously he was injured, of how much blood he was losing. "I wouldn't let myself become unconscious," he said, "because I knew I was gonna die."

During a race six years later, Bradbury slid headfirst into a barrier, breaking the C-4 and C-5 vertebrae. He was fitted with a
halo brace, which he described as feeling, "like getting your head put into a vice . . . it was pretty horrific."

Guess how much ice time he missed?

One month.

So the notion that Bradbury is somehow ahead of the game because of Saturday's bizarre victory is, well, insane. Every bit of
his hero status in Australia was already earned. "Apparently," he said, "I'm on the cover of every newspaper in Australia."

At 4:30 local time Sunday afternoon, Bradbury still had not been to bed. Radio stations back home were calling. NBC's "The
Today Show" sent a limousine for him around dawn Sunday morning. He was waiting for a call from the Australian prime
minister. With his dark hair and blond-frosted tips and piercings on the left edge of his left eyebrow, he is certainly telegenic.

"I don't need any sleep," he said. "I'm still charging. . . . I'm going to have some fun with [this], and if the rest of the country
wants to join in, they can."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company