A story of "luck" and an Olympic gold.

During the 2002 Winter Olympics, short track 1000m event, an Australian won the Olympic gold medal owing to, not one but three improbable events. Steven Bradbury, the first man from any southern hemisphere country to win a Winter Olympic gold medal.

Bradbury won the heats leading up to the quarter finals convincingly, but being one of the oldest competitors and up against younger and faster competition, it seemed like his run had ended with this race. Being allocated to the same race as Apolo Anton Ohno from the USA, who was the favorite and Marc Gagnon from Canada, the defending world champion. Only the top two skaters from each race would proceed to the quarter finals.

As expected Bradbury finished third in his race and thought himself to be eliminated, but he was pleasantly surprised to find out that Marc Gagnon has been disqualified due to obstructing another skater and so he proceeded to the semi finals.

In the semi finals, he absolutely had no chance to win and was well behind the other competitors including defending champion Kim Dong Sung of South-Korea , ten world championship winner Li Jiajun of China and two world championship winner Mathieu Turcotte of Canada. Surely enough, three of the five racers crashed paving the way for Bradbury to reach the finals.

In the finals, Bradbury's chances of a bronze medal let alone a gold was slim to none. The race began and Bradbury kept falling behind the competition and he was behind as much as 15 meters on the last lap when his luck struck and much to his disbelief all four of his competition started falling one by one, which lead him to swoop in and snatch the gold medal at the last moment. A shocked Bradbury became the first person from any southern hemisphere country to win a Winter Olympic event.

Was it luck which lead to Bradbury's victory ?

Was it a mystic force which tilted chance to bring Bradbury his first gold medal ? we will need to dig deeper into Bradbury's life to see how he came to be where he was.

Bradbury was at his peak in 1994 when he was a medal favorite, but was taken out by a rival in the semi-finals. Later that year in a competition he got his thigh cut clean through by a blade and lost 4 liters of blood, He needed 111 stitches and could not move for three weeks. His leg needed 18 months before it was back to full strength.

In 1998 he was again considered in the running for a medal but got jostled out in both of his races and didn't make the finals then in September 2000, Bradbury broke his neck in a training accident. Another skater fell in front of him and Bradbury tried to jump over him, but instead clipped him and tripped head first into the barriers. As a result, Bradbury fractured his vertebrae. He spent a month and a half in a halo brace, and needed four pins to be inserted in his skull and screws and plates bolted into his back and chest.

Steven Bradbury's Injuries

Doctors told Bradbury that he would not be able to take to the ice again, but he was determined to reach another Olympics. He wanted redemption after the crashes in the individual races in 1994 and 1998, even though he knew that he would be past his prime in terms of challenging for the medals.

By the time he got to Salt Lake Winter Olympics 2002 he was 28 and pretty old for a short tracker, not really a medal hopeful, kind of just doing a victory lap, but he persisted and when opportunity presented itself he took it.

Opportunity might have been presented to him during the Winter Olympics 2002 but without his determination and preparation he wouldn't have been able to make the most of it.

So was it luck ? Yes it was, as the Roman philosopher Seneca once stated