Monday Milestone: All the Rice in China

This Week in History
2008, August 10
Australian Stephanie Rice wins her first of three gold medals during the Beijing Olympics en route to becoming only the seventh Australian to do so.

"I never thought I was going to win, I didn't think I was a chance"
– Stephanie Rice after her remarkable 400 IM gold in Beijing

Do you remember what you were doing four years ago?  In many ways it seems just like yesterday, but in others it seems like a lifetime ago.  Just ask Stephanie Rice.

The Milestone parks the Delorean just one Olympiad ago when the Games returned to Asia for the first time in twenty years, as China became the focus of world attention. 

Personally, I remember having just finished helping an ex-girlfriend move house, and sitting on the floor eating dodgy pizza, as I waited for the Australian athletes to enter the Birds Nest Stadium for the opening ceremony of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. Talk about a lifetime ago.

Little did I realise, somewhere nestled among those athletes was a young Queenslander named Stephanie Rice. Like most of Australia, I knew very little about her.

Within a week, things were very different.

Two nights later Rice entered the Water Cube for the 400m individual medley, having qualified in lane six. But despite her outside lane, Rice made her intentions clear from the starting gun, leading the field through the butterfly leg, in world record time, going stroke for stroke with Zimbabwean Kirsty Coventry, through the backstroke. Then somewhere down the second lap of the breaststroke Rice discovered that fabled Olympic spirit, digging deep, and pulling away from the field.

Back home Australia roared, as Rice led Coventry by half a body-length into the final freestyle leg. Both were well inside record pace, as they hit the wall. Stephanie Rice would hold on for the Australia’s first Olympic gold of the Beijing Games, finishing ahead of Coventry, and breaking the world record for the first time ever inside four and a half minutes. Stephanie Rice was instantly a household name, and the darling of Beijing.

But there would be more. Three days later Rice returned for the shorter event, the 200m individual medley. Again she wasn’t the fastest qualifier. Again she continued her rivalry with Kirsty Coventry. Again there would be another world record. And again, Rice would break through for Olympic gold.

Then when Stephanie Rice won her third gold medal of the Games in the 4x200m freestyle relay, she was catapulted into Australian Olympic immortality as a triple Olympic gold medalist, and would return home from Beijing a national treasure.

But that was four years ago….

Since Beijing, it’s been a tumultuous journey. Never out of the spotlight. Those infamous Bonds ads with Eamon Sullivan. Dating Quade Cooper. The chequered history with social media. The pressure to repeat her Olympic success. It’s all been educational.

She arrived last week, in London a shadow of her former self after shoulder injuries. Having  finished out of the medals, now Rice contemplates retirement, confining all of her gold medal success to that single week in China.   

But it was a truly remarkable week, even if it feels forever ago.

And I’d say Stephanie Rice remembers exactly what she was doing four years ago more clearly than any of us. 

 

Milestone Five: Top five moments of the Beijing Olympic Games

5. Waseelah Saad competes as the first female sprinter from Yemen. She would race in a hijab.

4. Stephanie Rice becomes just the seventh Australian to win three gold medals at a single Olympic Games, adding to a list that includes Murray Rose, Betty Cuthbert, Shane Gould, Ian Thorpe, Petria Thomas and Jodie Henry.

3. Controversy reigns as Chinese gymnasts are accused of being too young to compete.

2. Usain Bolt breaks the 100m track record recording 9.69 seconds despite slowing down to celebrate. He would also break Michael Johnson’s 200m track world record.

1. Michael Phelps becomes the greatest Olympian ever, breaking the long standing record of Mark Spitz winning eight gold medals in a single Olympics. He would finish his career four years later in London with 18 gold, twice as many as anyone else in history.