Simple Things

This goes out to all my aussie friends, all two of them, who don’t read this blog. But still.

georgiegirlnyc:

In honor of the Winter Olympics starting tonight I thought I would share a little story about Australia’s first Winter Olympic gold medal.

Australians are awesome sportspeople.  But Winter sports?  Not so much.  It doesn’t stop us from trying.  Stephen Bradbury competed in the 1000m short track at the 2002 Salt Lake games.  He won his heat convincingly but was placed into a quarter final with the favorite and the defending world champion.  No hope, right?  Guess again.  Bradbury finished in third place but the favorite was disqualified allowing Bradbury into second place and thus through to the semi-final.  In the semi-final, Bradbury was in last place but three of his competitors fell and Bradbury progressed through to the final.

And what happened in the final?  Check out the video.  He’s the guy in last place (by a mile) for the entire race.  Oh, except for that bit where he crosses the finish line FIRST!

Not only was Bradbury the first Australian to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics, he was the first person from the entire Southern Hemisphere to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics.  Australia obviously went nuts for this guy!

Doing a ‘Bradbury’ now means an accidental win or unexpected or unusual success.