With his radically arched eyebrows and his hair standing stiffly on end, he has a look of permanent surprise, as though he’s spent a lifetime preparing his face for what transpired in the final of the 1,000-metre speed skate at the Salt Lake City Games.  There, he slipped calmly and gratefully past four of the best in the world as they tumbled and fumbled on the home stretch, groping for a grip on the ice. Now, he’s a man in demand. We caught up with him between engagements receiving the keys to Brisbane for a second time, and a Melbourne appearance at an Awesome Foursome golf tournament, and found a disarmingly uncomplicated man who defies the efforts of spin doctors to fabricate a Rocky on the rocks. An accidental gold medal? Not really. A career as a fireman? Not nearly so twee as it sounds.  As Robert Drane found out, it all makes perfect sense.

What question have you not been asked yet that you would most like to be asked?

“When are you going to get the time to go surfing every day?” Not soon enough would be the answer.

What about the Revolutionary Boot Company, your business making custom-made speed skating boots. Are you taking advantage of your new profile?

 We’ve had some solicitors and attorneys help us out with the business. We’re trying to attract different investors. I’m off to Canada on March 31 to coach some guys at the World Championships, and I’ll be doing some business there as well. There’s still a heap of time needed to convert opportunities and I don’t have a lot of time, so it’s up to Clint (Jensen, his business partner) right now. I’ve always been heavily involved in the design of the boots, but he’s basically run the business.

Do you find a difference between the way the Americans have treated you and the Aussies, over this gold medal win?

Initially, yeah. When the Americans heard the story they were a little pissed off that the American guy didn’t get the gold medal. But they had to become quick learners and realise that that’s the sort of thing that happens in short track. After the first couple of minutes, when I received a couple of negative comments from the crowd, I haven’t heard anything. It probably had a lot to do with the way I handled it. I’m the first to realise I was so lucky out there. It wasn’t my fault. You can’t blame me for it. I’m certainly not going to apologise for winning. The odd interviewer over there was a little more aggressive on the luck angle, but I didn’t give them any extra ammunition. I just played along, and that put out the fire pretty quickly.

Any one in America tried to delve into your life to find out whether there’s enough triumph and tragedy to justify a Rocky on Ice type flick? 

 I’ve been asked that question a lot in America: who do I want to play me in the movie? I just laughed that one off too.

What plans did you originally have after the Games?

Just what I’ve still got planned – becoming a fireman. I’ve finished the selection process now. I’m hopefully on the waiting list. The maximum is two years but I’m hoping to push that out a little longer because I’ve got so much stuff on at the moment.

A lot of gold medallists might have wanted to be firemen when they were kids. You win a gold medal, then want to become a fireman. How come?

Dunno. I did it for work experience at school and it seems like the kind of job that’s made for me, really. I like the idea of, when there’s an emergency, you get pumped up, you go out, you work hard for as long as you have to, and you come back and you relax. I’m basically a pressure performer. That’s when my best comes out. When I’m not under pressure, I have trouble getting anything out of myself sometimes. I need it to perform. That job seems to fit me.

You supply skates to a lot of your opponents. Has anyone investigated your role in that pile up?

 (Laughs) As far as sabotage goes? No they haven’t, but plenty of people have joked about fishing line and self-destruct buttons in the other guys’ skates.

We know your family’s all over the moon about the surprise win. But what do your mates say?

 They’re all stoked. In a lot of ways, when I see it on TV, I would have loved to see one of my mates doing that. It’s not hard to take, people being happy for you.

Have you met people you wouldn’t have expected to be meeting since your win?

Oh yeah. On the Gold Coast the other week, I ended up having a chat with Kelly Slater and we were chatting for ages. I’m sure he wouldn’t have spent more than a “how are you going mate?” with me before. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but I was quite happy to have a chat with him.

Do you wonder who’s genuine and who’s not?

Not really. I’m probably naïve. I basically treat everyone as genuine and trustworthy until they prove me wrong.

How did the other guys in your final react when you got the medal?

The American and the Canadian guy were just stoked to get a medal. We’re all mates. We travel around the circuit together, and know each other well.

What was your actual plan for the race?

My only plan was to hang back and let the other guys battle it out, because that’s what they were going to do. It was the same in the semis. I looked at all the names and thought “he’s stronger than me. He’s stronger. Everyone was.” There was only two spots for the final, and once you get to the final, all four of the other blokes wanted the gold bad enough to go right through the other guys. I was the one guy prepared to sit on the back and not really compete. My plan was that there would be collisions, and I was pretty sure there would be. I thought that two would go down, and I’d get bronze. Obviously it worked out a little bit better than that.

So you actually bargained for the fact that –

It was more than that. It wasn’t a sure thing, but it was a massive, massive chance of two going down, or one going down and the guy that put him out being disqualified. One of the English guys knew it too. He said to me before the race, “Steve, your gunna get a medal out of this for sure. Just sit on the back.” I was very confident of getting a medal just from being out there. But a gold was something different.

You can’t say that about many other sports…

You can’t about short track either, but the way the competition was going that night, Apolo was fully pumped up in the media and the pressure was on him to win. And there was the Chinese guy who’s won three or four silver medals, and his country’s got pressure on him to win their first gold; the Canadian guy who missed out on the team so often and only got a shot at the one distance because he missed out on all the others. The little Korean guy, it was basically his first senior competition. They do what their coach says, and he would have been skating to win. They’d have been pissed off if he’d got silver. They weren’t prepared to settle for anything but first place. So there had to be a collision. It was inevitable.

So you went in there with an awareness of all these factors? 

Oh yeah. I knew something was going to happen. I was lucky it went down the way it did, but I’d have been surprised not to have wound up on the podium before that race.

Is there anyone you compare yourself to?

I’d like to say my story’s got some similarities to Mark Occhilupo’s story. But maybe that’s talking myself up a bit.

But you never laid off and got really fat.

No but I broke my leg and got all those stitches and stuff.

Not to mention the fractured skull. Let’s just say, then, that your win was a fable. What would the moral be?

 Use any cliché in the book, I guess. Persistence pays off. I’ve heard about twenty or thirty that might be relevant to my story. Follow your dream. It’s a classic tale, I guess, but I don’t really want to send out the message that if you stick with this, this will happen to you. I skated as well as I could at 28. I made myself happy doing that, and winning was a pretty nice bonus.

If you want custom made speed skating or in-line skating boots, get onto Stephen’s web site, www.rbcsport.com

Published in Inside Sport, June, 2003