Steven Bradbury, from “Never say Goal” to a true hero of Australia

From speck to hero. Steven Bradbury, the gold medalist of the short track 1000 meters at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, was made famous in Italy for the ironic exaltation that Gialappa’s had made of him at Never say goals. The Australian had in fact managed to win the first winter Olympic gold in the history of his country as the only “survivor” of a final in which all the others had fallen or were punished with disqualification.

In the waves

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But now Bradbury has taken his best revenge. In fact, on Saturday he saved four girls who risked drowning. The 48-year-old Olympian was in Caloundra, in the Brisbane area, for surfing lessons with his son Flynn and a friend of his, when he noticed the girls were in trouble. “It was just me and instinct took over”, he told Radio949. With champion reaction times, Bradbury quickly grabbed his son’s surfboard and rushed into the sky-high waves to rescue one of the girls. Meanwhile, the lifeguards, warned by his son, helped the others.

A hero

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The satisfaction this time was enormous: “One of them hugged me tightly thanking me and I felt my knees give way because of the enormity of the situation I had experienced”. All the girls were rescued, only one of them hyperventilated but was never in danger of life. The four then said that without the former athlete’s help they would not have made it. And if “making a Bradbury” until some time ago meant “winning a sensational and unexpected success”, now it means having the courage of true champions.