Short Track Speed Skating at the 2002 Winter Games: Previous Winter Games ▪ Next Winter Games
Host City: Salt Lake City, United States
Venue(s): Salt Lake Ice Center, Salt Lake City, Utah
Date Started: February 13, 2002
Date Finished: February 16, 2002
Format: Placements 1-8 based on final and B final. Deeper placements based on points earned in earlier rounds, and time in final round skated.
| Gold: | Steven Bradbury |
| Silver: | Apolo Anton Ohno |
| Bronze: | Mathieu Turcotte |
The story of the 1,000 m short track was not with one of the favorites, but with an Australian outsider, Steven Bradbury. A veteran of two Winter Olympics, he'd won a bronze medal with the Australian relay team in 1992, and had been a relay World Champion in 1991. But by 2002, Bradbury was no longer considered a factor. His participation in Salt Lake City was remarkable already, having broken two neck vertebrae in a training crash in late 2000.
Bradbury easily survived the heats, but appeared to go out in the quarter-finals, when star skater Marc Gagnon was disqualified for obstructing a Japanese skater, allowing the Australian to advance. A similar situation occurred in the semi-finals, when Bradbury was in third place when the defending champion, Kim Dong-Seong, collided with [Saturo Terao], eliminating them both. Bradbury again advanced for an unexpected spot in the final. That appeared the best he could do, as the other four finalists quickly distanced themselves from Bradbury. In the very last curve, crowd favorite Apolo Anton Ohno and Li Jiajun of China collided, taking Mathieu Turcotte and An Hyeon-Su with them. With the rest of field lying scattered on the ice, Bradbury crossed the line first. As he raised his arms in disbelief, the others scrambled to get up and cross the line, Ohno throwing his skate over the line first, followed by Turcotte.
Bradbury's surprise victory was Australia's first ever gold medal in the Winter Olympics, and it made him a celebrity in his home country. Just days after the final, Australia Post issued a stamp with his likeness, and "doing a Bradbury" entered Australian vocabulary.
| Rank | Athlete | Age | Team | NOC | Medal | PTS | BT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Steven Bradbury | 28 | Australia | AUS | Gold | |||
| 2 | Apolo Anton Ohno | 19 | United States | USA | Silver | |||
| 3 | Mathieu Turcotte | 25 | Canada | CAN | Bronze | |||
| 4 | An Hyeon-Su | 16 | South Korea | KOR | ||||
| 5 | Kim Dong-Seong | 22 | South Korea | KOR | ||||
| 6 | Fabio Carta | 24 | Italy | ITA | ||||
| 7 | Naoya Tamura | 22 | Japan | JPN | ||||
| 8 | Li Jiajun | 26 | China | CHN | 63 | DQ | ||
| 9 | Rusty Smith | 22 | United States | USA | 47 | 1:28.078 | ||
| 10 | Feng Kai | 23 | China | CHN | 47 | 1:28.424 | ||
| 11 | Wim De Deyne | 24 | Belgium | BEL | 42 | 1:27.785 | ||
| 12 | Satoru Terao | 26 | Japan | JPN | 42 | 1:28.241 | ||
| 13 | Nicola Rodigari | 20 | Italy | ITA | 34 | 1:27.578 | ||
| 14 | Leon Flack | 21 | Great Britain | GBR | 29 | 1:28.604 | ||
| 15 | Mark McNee | 20 | Australia | AUS | 29 | 1:39.325 | ||
| 16 | Marc Gagnon | 26 | Canada | CAN | 21 | 1:28.718 | ||
| 17 | Bruno Loscos | 26 | France | FRA | 13 | 1:28.532 | ||
| 18 | Cees Juffermans | 19 | Netherlands | NED | 13 | 1:29.249 | ||
| 19 | Krystian Zdrojkowski | 19 | Poland | POL | 13 | 1:30.026 | ||
| 20 | Balázs Knoch | 22 | Hungary | HUN | 13 | 1:31.061 | ||
| 21 | Kornél Szántó | 23 | Hungary | HUN | 13 | 1:31.391 | ||
| 22 | Mark Jackson | 21 | New Zealand | NZL | 13 | 1:32.276 | ||
| 23 | Arian Nachbar | 25 | Germany | GER | 13 | 1:33.585 | ||
| 24 | Pieter Gysel | 21 | Belgium | BEL | 8 | 1:31.290 | ||
| 25 | Kiril Pandov | 18 | Bulgaria | BUL | 8 | 1:31.842 | ||
| 26 | Miroslav Boyadzhiev | 22 | Bulgaria | BUL | 8 | 1:32.421 | ||
| 27 | Nicky Gooch | 29 | Great Britain | GBR | 8 | 1:38.034 | ||
| 28 | Battulgyn Oktyabri | 21 | Mongolia | MGL | 8 | 1:47.213 | ||
| 29 | Matúš Užák | 20 | Slovakia | SVK | 8 | 2:17.608 | ||
| AC | Gregory Durand | 24 | France | FRA | DQ | |||
| AC | Volodymyr Hryhor'iev | 19 | Ukraine | UKR | DQ | |||
| AC | Martin Johansson | 28 | Sweden | SWE | DQ |