Australia’s most famous Winter Olympian Stephen Bradbury returns to where he laid foundations for an extraordinary career

Stephen Bradbury is Australia’s most famous Winter Olympian but he laid foundations for an extraordinary career on the steep hills of Springwood and around the gruelling incline on Mount Gravatt.

Stephen Bradbury wins the Olympic gold.

Australia’s most famous Winter Olympian Stephen Bradbury was a cyclist long, long before it was trendy.

In the 1980s as a schoolboy and the early 1990s as a teenager, Bradbury would ride the hills of Logan and southern Brisbane fuelled by his desire to become an elite speed skater.

“I was cycling before it became the new golf, and I was not doing it for pleasure.’’

He lived in Springwood, and would finish his ride with burning legs and a pounding heart as he inched his way up steep Springwood Rd toward his home.

“That last hill coming up from where Ikea used to be, when you have nothing left in your legs, that’s a burner,’’ Bradbury recalled.

But he said it had nothing on the grinding, gruelling ride up Mt Gravatt.

Bradbury was so tired from his riding and training at Ice World, Acacia Ridge, he would get heavy eyelids while at school at Springwood State High School.

“I’d almost fall asleep in class, I was that tired at school,’’ he laughed.

But getting all those miles in his legs, both on the bike and on the ice, gave him strength and endurance and an edge over opponents.

As a 15-year-old, on his first Australian team, he watched a Japanese speed skater break the world record­. The Japanese competitor displayed such grit that it left an indelible mark on Bradbury.

“Over the last four laps he passed the other three skaters on the outside – it took the best part of three laps to pass them,’’ Bradbury said.

“You thought he would die but he kept moving his legs and gapped them and broke the world record.

“I was the reserve that day and remember thinking ‘I want to do that’.

“From there on in I knew I was going to the Olympics.’’

Bradbury went to four Olympics.

His “last man standing” gold medal win at the 2002 Olympics was Australia’s first gold and that achievement will forever be one of the most memorable sporting moments in the country.

It was the day the entire field fell over – except for last placed Bradbury — leaving him to glide across the finish line with an astonished look on his face.

It was from that triumph the great Australian saying: “Done a Bradbury” was born. “It is difficult to forget,’’ Bradbury said.

“I am probably the luckiest individual gold medallist,’’ said Bradbury.

“But I trained my guts out to put myself in that position.

“I would like to think my story is a prime example that if you are willing to invest­ all of yourself into something, then eventually you can put yourself in a position to do a Bradbury.’

He is best known for that epic gold medal at the 2002 Olympics, but it is easy to forget was already­ recognised as a world-class athlete long before that extraordinary win.

In 1991, Bradbury was part of the Australian quartet that won the 5000m relay at the World Championships, Australia’s first winter sport world title.

In 1994 he was also a member of the short track relay team that won Australia’s first Winter Olympics medal, a bronze.

But perhaps his greatest achievement was just qualifying for his final Winter Olympics in 2002.

Twenty months before his gold medal win Bradbury broke his neck in training, slamming head first into barriers and fracturing his C4 and C5 vertebra.

He spent weeks in a halo brace and had pins inserted in his skull and screws and plates bolted into his back and chest.

How did he come back from that to compete at an Olympic Games?

“It was one of the biggest defining moments of my life,’’ he said. “I had competed at three Olympics and was past my the best of my skating ability.’’

But he wanted one last tilt at an Olympic medal.

“I was told by a doctor I would never race again. But I just went to another doctor.

“I was going to have one last shot at it, no matter what anyone said to me.’’

Who: Stephen Bradbury returns to Logan as guest speaker at the Logan Small Business Expo

When: November 3, 10am

Where: Beenleigh Exhibition Hall, Beenleigh Showground