Steven John Bradbury OAM (born 14 October 1973) is an Australian former short-track speed skater and four-time Olympian.

[2][3] The Australians were in third place when Richard Nizielski lost his footing; they finished fourth and failed to reach the final.

Late in the race, Nizielski was fighting with his American counterpart for track position for the silver medal, but took the safe option and yielded, mindful of the lost opportunity following the crash in Albertville.

], another skater's blade sliced through Bradbury's right thigh after a collision; it cut through to the other side, resulting in him losing four litres of blood.

[10][9] Bradbury's heart rate had been close to 200 bpm at the end of the race and this meant that blood was being pumped out fast.

[11] Bradbury, Nizielski and Kieran Hansen, three of the quartet that won Australia's maiden medal in 1994, returned for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Japan with new teammate Richard Goerlitz.

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.

[14] Bradbury took an unlikely gold medal win in the men's short-track 1000 metres event at the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

However, in the quarter-finals, Bradbury was allocated to the same race as Apolo Anton Ohno, the favourite from the host nation, and Marc Gagnon of Canada, the defending world champion.

Bradbury finished third in his race and thought himself to be eliminated, but Gagnon was disqualified for obstructing another racer, allowing the Australian to advance to the semi-finals.

[15] After consulting his national coach Ann Zhang, Bradbury's strategy from the semi-final onwards was to cruise behind his opponents and hope that they crashed, as he could not match their pace.

[16] His reasoning was that risk-taking by the favourites could cause a collision due to a racing incident, and, if two or more skaters fell, the remaining three would all get medals; additionally, as he was slower than his opponents, trying to challenge them directly would only increase his own chances of becoming part of a crash entanglement.

[16][17] Bradbury said that he was satisfied with his result, and he felt that, as the second-oldest competitor in the field, he was not able to match his opponents in four races on the same night.

However, defending champion Kim Dong-sung of South Korea, multiple Olympic medallist Li Jiajun of China, and Mathieu Turcotte of Canada all crashed, paving the way for Bradbury to take first place and advancing him through to the final.

[21] In an interview after winning his gold, referring to his two career- and life-threatening accidents,[22] Bradbury said: "Obviously I wasn't the fastest skater.

He was unable to maintain his speed through the competition; after posting a time of 2:22.632 in the heats, Bradbury slowed by three seconds in each of his next two races.

[26] However, some unhappy American commentators also made fun of the race and used it to criticise what they perceived as a lack of merit required to win a short-track event.

He looked like the tortoise behind four hares",[27] while the Boston Globe said that "multiple crashes that allow the wrong person to win are part of the deal".

[34] In March 2022, Bradbury rescued four teenage girls from drowning whilst out surfing with his son Flyn on the Sunshine Coast.

[citation needed] In 2009, Bradbury competed in the Australian Mini Challenge at the Tasmanian round and 2010 at Queensland Raceway as their Uber Star.

This recognised his role in rescuing four teenage girls caught in a rip off of King’s Beach in Caloundra, Queensland, in 2022.