Kieran Hansen Interview

A very special interview for you today as we chat with one quarter of Australia's bronze medal winning relay team in short-track speed skating from Lillehammer in 1994, Kieran Hansen! Kieran takes us through the history making medal win, which of course was the very first won by Australia at the Winter Olympics, and the lead up to the race that delivered the result Australia had been craving for a long time. He also chats about his post-skating career as well as giving his memories of the day that his teammate Steven Bradbury went on to win gold 8 years later in Salt Lake City.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.

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BEN WATERWORTH: Welcome back to Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast. We bring you a bit of a different interview today. We've been chatting to a bunch of upcoming Olympians, or former Olympians, I guess, who are about to attend Pyeongchang in 2018. But our next guest, somebody who's definitely not competing in Pyeongchang 2018 because he's already had his Olympic career, a three-time Olympian in Mr. Kieran Hansen, who is most notably known, of course, as being a member of the men's 5,000-metre short track relay team from Lillehammer in 1994, which of course created history for this nation of Australia by winning our very first Winter Olympic medal. It was a bronze medal, big moment in the history of this nation, and definitely an honour to be able to chat here to Kieran. And you're gonna hear a lot about his career in short track, how he got into the sport, the early days kind of going into those Olympics, the moment when he won that bronze medal, and what he's been up to since. Of course, his take on Steven Bradbury's famous gold medal win back in 2002, and there's even a bit of a surprise visit by his actual medal, a photo of which we will put up on our Facebook page for you to be able to check out. You'll hear him get it in this interview and probably thinking to yourself, why can't I see anything? Well, it's audio, so you'll have to check out the visual on our Facebook page. But without further ado, our fantastic chat, here it is, Kieran Hansen, 1994 Olympic Games bronze medallist, here on Off The Podium. It's a massive pleasure to be able to welcome our next guest here to Off The Podium. We've been doing a series of interviews with athletes for the upcoming 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. And at the same time, we've also been looking back at some past athletes and talking about their careers. And our next guest, very excited to be able to welcome to the show. He was part of the history-making short track relay team that won bronze in Lillehammer in 1994. And also outside of that is a three-time Olympian and one of our greatest ever short track speed skaters. I do, of course, speak of Mr. Kieran Hansen. Kieran, welcome to the program.

KIERAN HANSEN: Thanks, Ben.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's a huge pleasure to have you here. I just mentioned to you off air when I sort of reached out and found your details and you replied, I got a bit excited. It sort of brought back the seven-year-old back in me. I remember watching you guys win that bronze medal 23 years ago now, incredibly. So it must be interesting to sort of get people reaching out to you about this. Is this a common thing that people still are reaching out to you and talking to you about this?

KIERAN HANSEN: No, not at all. I still get a random mail in the letter asking for autographs from German autograph hunters, but that's as bad as crazy as it gets for me these days.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it's really incredible to kind of look back on that time because we recently spoke to Zali Stegel and were sort of talking to her about, you know, everything that led up to her bronze in 1998. But it was just, it was a very different time, I guess, in Australia when it came to winter sports, wasn't it? Because, you know, we still say to the winter athletes on the show that, yeah, okay, Australia doesn't really pay a lot of attention to them until the Winter Olympics. But even then, there's sort of all these expectations. It's very professional. A lot of them are doing great things, you know, on the world scene between the Olympics. But it was a very different time, I think, in 1994. Wasn't it when it came to winter sports in Australia compared to now?

KIERAN HANSEN: I mean, it's still, you know, I would have called it an amateur sport back then. Everybody worked, and while we trained, we had to work to support ourselves, and like most sort of athletes back in those days that went to the Olympics. So, you know, we were very much part-time athletes, even though we were pretty competitive, though. We still had a fairly structured sort of training program, I guess you would call it. We had a national coach, and speed skating was quite an interesting sport, even back through the 60s, 70s, and 80s. That's one of the things I really enjoyed about the sport. It had quite a deep and rich history within Australia, and quite a, I wouldn't say big community, but it had a fairly strong community, and there was always the dreams of any of the elite athletes or top-level speed skaters to go to the Olympics, and at that time, before 1994 or 1992, actually the dream would have been to be a long track speed skater, and short track was a path through to that. But thankfully for us, short track became an Olympic sport, and we were allowed to focus on that and train out of Australia.

BEN WATERWORTH: And now, how do you get involved in the sport? Because kids in Australia, they're growing up, they're playing footy, they're playing soccer, they're playing rugby, and not often pulling on the skates. So how do you get involved in the sport of speed skating?

KIERAN HANSEN: Yeah, that's kind of a common question I get asked. It's not obviously a high-profile sport or a common sport to play or to do. But as a six-year-old kid, I'd always dreamt of going to the Olympic Games, and I was doing a little athletics at the time. And as I sort of got a bit older and sort of around 11 or 12 years of age, it was quite clear that I wasn't gonna make it in any of the track and field disciplines. So sort of fell out of that. And strangely enough, at the time, my sister was playing ice hockey. So, and my mum was learning how to do figure skating at an elder age. So I just followed them down to the ice rink and picked it up from there.

BEN WATERWORTH: Didn't want to go into the ice hockey route because that was the one I always sort of wanted to play, but I just can't skate, so.

KIERAN HANSEN: Well, I started playing ice hockey, joined the club at Blacktown. I didn't know how to skate. My mum bought me all the gear, and I joined the club. And pretty much within the first training session, the coach said, oh, look, mate, I think you better learn how to skate. So it was then I went to the skate school, and actually at that time, the coach or the lady, one of the ladies teaching the learn to skate ended up being our national coach in the short track team. So yeah, that's kind of, then I started doing hockey and picked up short track at the same time.

BEN WATERWORTH: And do you realise that whilst you're playing hockey, or I guess once you're really getting your feet there on the ice, that you're quite fast? Are you then kind of scouted across or does that sort of, you see the short track guys and think, hey, I'm probably gonna enjoy that more than hockey.

KIERAN HANSEN: I, yeah, I did have a bit of speed when I was playing hockey. But because I was through the learn to skate program, and I kind of, although I didn't really wanna do short track because you had to wear tights, and I wasn't getting beaten up at school at the time. So I resisted for a while, but yeah, it was pretty clear early on that I had a bit of speed, and then I was sort of tempted across to compete in short track.

BEN WATERWORTH: And I mean, obviously you mentioned sort of, Australia was a bit of history in the sport, and kind of in that period, sort of what in the 80s leading into the 90s, I mean, that success really obviously came leading into 91 when you guys would go on to win the world championship. But what was the speed skating scene like at that point in Australia? I mean, was it people really just focusing on that short track, or as you were saying, were people then trying to use that as a lead in to the long track because short track wasn't an Olympic sport at the time?

KIERAN HANSEN: Well, in 88, we were a demonstration sport, and that's when we were then able to train and focus towards Albaville in 92. But we had pretty good skaters through the 80s. In Michael Richmond, Danny Carr, Michael Hearn, there was a whole series of good competitive skaters in Australia, but we also had a pretty good sort of, not elite level, but just participation rate through Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland and New South Wales is actually quite strong. We probably had about 110 skaters at the national championships around about that time. So we had a little bit of a base there to help feed into the sort of the elite levels. And from 88, I made the national team in 88 when I was 16 and sort of Steven Bradbury, as you know, he was probably a year younger than me. He sort of followed through behind and a couple of the older skaters. So I mentioned Danny Carr earlier, but his brother Johnny Carr was in the relay team. And we just probably had a good strong group of five to six skaters, and then maybe seven and eight, nine kind of pushing up behind. So we had a pretty good training group. And Maggie Holland, who I mentioned earlier, our coach, as soon as it became an Olympic sport, we pretty much geared all our training towards qualifying for the 92 Olympics in 1991. And it was just one of those things, everything kind of fell into place and we became all champions in 1991.

BEN WATERWORTH: Must have been a pretty big deal at that point. The sport is officially an Olympic sport coming into the games. You guys are world champions. And obviously a lot of, say, our international listeners might not be fully aware that heading into 92, Australia had never medaled, of course, at the Winter Olympics. So, I mean, how do you find coming off a world championship win and going into an Olympic Games where there had been expectations, no doubt, in the past that we could medal, but, I mean, this was really one of these opportunities when it's like, hey, we are the best in the world at this. This is a real opportunity for us to finally break that dark.

KIERAN HANSEN: Oh, it was amazing for us. You know, I was probably 20, 21 at the time, and, you know, kind of our dreams were sort of coming true in front of us, and it even got sort of more intense. The night in the heat in Alba Ville, we basically, with Korea in us, normally at the Olympics, you would just have two semi-finals and a final, but because France didn't qualify and the host nation, it meant that we had nine teams instead of eight to go through, so they broke it into three heats before the semi-finals. And basically, we had Korea, South Korea, Canada, and us in the first heat. And what that meant was the first two would go through, and then the next fastest third out of all the races would make it into the semi. So you just didn't know how fast you had to go. And for us, competing against those two countries who were super strong, it was an amazingly fast race. And all three teams went under the current world record by seven seconds.

BEN WATERWORTH: Wow.

KIERAN HANSEN: And we beat Canada into second, so we went straight through into that semi. So all of a sudden, we're reigning world champions, we're into the semi finals, and along with Korea and Canada, we've broken the world record by seven seconds. And then the next closest team behind us in those heats was Japan, who was four seconds behind. So I'm pretty sure I can speak for most of the other guys. I think we kind of ran that race maybe 100 times in our heads before we even got to the semi finals. So we got well and truly ahead of ourselves, which is a golden state number one when you're an athlete. So that's kind of a big lesson for us.

BEN WATERWORTH: And sadly, crashed out in the semis. Obviously, it wasn't to be. But I guess the unique aspect about that time period was given that they changed the cycle of the winter game so that the next winter Olympics are only two years later. So you, I guess, had a little bit shorter of a period there to really get over that disappointment, push towards another Olympics. And what was, I guess, that two-year period like after Albuville heading into Lillehammer and kind of getting you guys, I guess, literally back on your feet and really pushing again for that elusive first medal for Australia?

KIERAN HANSEN: Yeah, it was a great opportunity, obviously, as an athlete, to have an Olympic Games come around within a two-year period. So, you know, we got back from Albuville and, you know, trained very hard. Obviously, for the Olympic Games, you normally qualify the year before. So, for us, that was the World Championships in Beijing in 1993. So, we all got back home, we all trained very hard, we were focused, and we got third. It's quite nerve-racking, actually, trying to qualify for the Games because one wrong step and you're out. But, you know, we made it through to the final. We came third in that final in Beijing. So, we qualified for a lily hammer. For me, I was skating quite well individually at the time. I came back from Beijing, actually, and picked up glandular fever, which was quite a challenge in preparing for the Olympics in 12 months' time. So, I had quite a large spleen for a long period of time, and I had to really manage my training. I was tired very easily, and had to make sure that I didn't over train and become sick again. So, I had quite an unusual preparation going into Lillehammer. But I managed through, I think, actually, to the long-term detriment of my career, actually, my skating career. After Lillehammer, I never really got back to being myself, really. But we put it all on the line and we went into Lillehammer.

BEN WATERWORTH: We weren't...

KIERAN HANSEN: Well, we came third in Beijing. Now, a lot of teams had started catching up, and it was far more competitive going into Lillehammer. So we weren't as confident going into the games, but we got a good result in the end.

BEN WATERWORTH: Obviously, one of the best things through leading into the final was, in your semi, you also knocked off New Zealand, which must have felt pretty good to kind of get one over them on the way into the final.

KIERAN HANSEN: Well, definitely. In 1993, they won the World Championships in Beijing, and they smashed the world record in doing that. And in Lille, in the Albaville, in the semi finals, they were putting pressure on us in the semis, and wouldn't say they caused us to fall, but they were definitely putting pressure on us. So they came fourth in the final in Albaville, so they were devastated in coming fourth. So for us to beat them, obviously, it's always good to get one over the Kiwis.

BEN WATERWORTH: It must be interesting to have that rivalry, obviously celebrated history, Australia, New Zealand, in cricket, in rugby, in every sport, but to have that rivalry cross into, I guess, a sport where neither country really pays a whole lot of attention to most of the time. That just must have added a bit of extra fun to it.

KIERAN HANSEN: Yeah, I mean, they would always come to our national championships every year and compete against us. And we had pretty good rivalry and close, I wouldn't say close friendships, but friendships with those guys. They toured at the same times. We would tour, and obviously, being Australia and New Zealand, we know each other very well. And yeah, I mean, that was super happy for us. I still see some of those guys every now and again, around the place. So it's always good to catch up and have a laugh. And we certainly had some fun times and interesting times over the 10 years that I was competing against them.

BEN WATERWORTH: Fantastic, fantastic. Now, take us to the final. I mean, obviously, we all know what happened. You go on to win the bronze. But I mean, during that race, the Canadians falling obviously helped you guys basically get into that position where at that point, you really know you're gonna win a medal if you can just stay on your feet. So once the Canadians are down, you're sort of, you're realising this position you're in. How are those nerves? Because I mean, of course, I guess part of you is probably like, hey, cool. Well, you know, other people could fall. We could go for gold. We could go for silver. But is it just really a case of finish the race, get a medal? This is going to be something big for Australia.

KIERAN HANSEN: For me personally, it was a tough race. I was very nervous. And the ice conditions don't really suit my style of skating. And the ice broke up quite a lot, which I normally struggle in a bit. But I remember being tired very early in that race. And the last thing you want to be is tired early because it's a long race. And it's really hard, hard towards the end there with the lactic acid. But with the Canadians gone, we were fighting with the Americans there for a silver. And the self-preservation part probably didn't really kick in until probably the last, probably two, three laps when Richard was fighting with Eric Flame. Well, Eric came through, didn't really give us much of a choice. But yeah, I think that's when self-preservation really came into it. But other than that, you fight the whole way through pretty much.

BEN WATERWORTH: And did you realise the significance of the moment when you guys got that medal? I mean, did it take a while to kick in? I mean, how kind of was those initial moments after crossing the line, you guys have an Olympic medal?

KIERAN HANSEN: It definitely took a little bit to kick on. Initially, I was not that long, but initially, I was a bit dirty that we didn't get the silver. We were so close to getting the silver medal, which would have been nice. So that was a bit disappointing, but then obviously, the reaction from coaches and support staff and teammates and people in the crowd was pretty special and didn't really matter at that point.

BEN WATERWORTH: And what was the reaction like back home, given that, I mean, I remember watching as a seven-year-old, sort of the coverage of it. And I don't really think it was really, I think it was about Nagano, that they really started paying a lot more. I mean, it was on TV, but I didn't feel it was the blanket coverage we sort of get today when the Winter Games are on. But I mean, was it, you came home as heroes, were you guys sort of just treated completely differently, or was it kind of like, okay, that's kind of cool, but we'll just, you know, put you guys on the back burner again? How did it all happen?

KIERAN HANSEN: Oh, we, the original plan was to stay on and train in Europe. We had the World Championships in London, you know, about a month later, but we had a sponsorship by Telstra at the time, and they were quite keen to try and capitalize on the money they had invested in to us. So we were flown back, and yeah, we were treated pretty well and pretty special there for about two to three weeks while we kind of, you know, I remember Andrew Muthra and myself, we were flown down and went on the Burt Newton show. You know, there was, yeah, it was pretty good, actually. There was quite a few TV interviews, and, you know, I think, you know, we were given the keys to the city in Sydney. So there was a reception at Town Hall there, which was, you know, pretty special. And, you know, we had quite a few special events there, which made it, you know, quite nice.

BEN WATERWORTH: And I can imagine, too, the vibe amongst the Australian team then at that point. I mean, obviously a very small team, you know, just over 20, I think, there in Lillehammer. I mean, how then kind of were you guys, I guess, treated back in the village, you know, was it just nonstop drinking for the rest of the games from that point on?

KIERAN HANSEN: Well, we compete pretty much on the last day, so, or the day before the, probably the day before the closing ceremony, if not two days before. So we partied, yeah, we, I mean, you know, the AOC was over the moon. You know, there was obviously many, many officials there from the Olympic Committee and obviously the team. And we did hit it pretty hard there for a while. I don't remember sleeping before the closing ceremony, and I think pretty much went straight through that night as well. So it was good fun.

BEN WATERWORTH: I can imagine. I mean, that's a pretty decent time for the AOC at that point. You know, only months beforehand, they're just been given the Games in Sydney for Tuesday and then here you are a couple of months later, winning our first ever medal at the Winter Olympics. So I can imagine the AOC were just, you know, over the moon and then some.

KIERAN HANSEN: Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, they were hoping for a medal. They had Kirsty Marshall was thereabouts and ourselves were there. So it was the best opportunity, you know, in history for us to get a medal, and luckily we came away with one.

BEN WATERWORTH: I always love to find out what athletes do with their medals. What did you do with your medal at the time? What have you done with your medal at the time now? Is this something that kind of pops up every now and then?

KIERAN HANSEN: It's behind me. It just sits by the TV. I don't know if you can... I can go and get it if you like.

BEN WATERWORTH: Why not? We can get a screenshot of you holding the medal. That would be nice. Yeah, sure. If you want to grab it, grab it, Kieran. I'd love to see it. Give me a second. He's going to get them. This is the first, actually, on Off The Podium. I don't think I've ever actually seen one of our guests get the medal out. Here we go. Look, we're going to put this photo up, I think, on our page, because it's not going good for the audio side of things. Hold it up. I'll take a screenshot of this.

KIERAN HANSEN: It's actually broken, but I'll...

BEN WATERWORTH: All right. I'll just hold it up there, give us a smile. Beautiful. All right. Perfect. Now that... So it's broken. How does it break? I need to ask that question now. Where...

KIERAN HANSEN: The previous place I lived, it was kind of just hanging off a mirror on the bed... On the chest of drawers. And there's basically a metal pin that...

BEN WATERWORTH: Ah.

KIERAN HANSEN: Slots in, and it fell off and bent, and then I tried to fix it and it snapped off, so I can't attach the...

BEN WATERWORTH: So you can't just send it back to the IOC and go, hey guys, can you send this to your metal department and fix it, or...?

KIERAN HANSEN: I could find... I probably could find somebody to fix it, but I just haven't got around to it yet.

BEN WATERWORTH: That would be a unique situation where you go to, I mean, I don't know, like a key cutting level, whoever would fix it and say, hi, can you just fix my metal? Oh, what was it for? Oh, just the Olympics, just a bronze medal.

KIERAN HANSEN: I normally get Steven Bradbury to do it, actually. He's got a guy that's touched up a few... His medal as well, so I normally just give it to Steven.

BEN WATERWORTH: Just pass it out for him. There you go. Simple. Is it something, I mean, kind of over the years, I mean, we'll obviously touch on what you've been up to since, but is it something that, you know, say you've got friends who come over who maybe aren't familiar or, you know, when it comes to, say, showing it off at a school or something like that? I mean, is it still something that you've got out constantly to sort of talk about, say, here's my medal?

KIERAN HANSEN: No, I feel a bit weird about that. I'm probably a bit, I guess, humble about it. I kind of let people work it out themselves, and then if they want to talk about it, I'll talk about it.

BEN WATERWORTH: Similar to why we're here today, I guess. Now, you obviously went on to competing one more games in Nagano. Not obviously the best result for you sort of to close off your career, and you sort of mentioned just before how you weren't necessarily skating your best sort of post-Lilla Harmer. I mean, how kind of was that period in your career and sort of how did you come away with Nagano? Did you go into it, I guess, thinking also that there was an opportunity for a repeat or?

KIERAN HANSEN: No, I mean, it was pretty tough. I mean, the team had changed. We'd lost Andrew Merther and Johnny Carr. And as I mentioned before, you know, physically I had my own issues to deal with, and it was actually just quite an achievement to qualify, as I mentioned before. Only the top eight teams go through, and they qualify at the world championships the year before. And even, you know, going from Lily Hammer to Nagano, the speed skating became even more competitive. Teams were closer, so we actually did a pretty good job just to qualify with the team that we had. But it was tough, I mean, but it was a dream for me to go to three games, which, you know, was a pretty big achievement. But yeah, we did our best with the team that we had, but yeah, we definitely weren't as competitive as we had been in the past.

BEN WATERWORTH: I've got to obviously mention, four years later, a certain little event happened with one of your teammates. Mr. Bradbury went on to win that gold, very famous moment. I mean, what were you thinking when you saw that race? Because, you know, it's gone down in Australian sporting history about how we did it, of course. But I mean, are you sitting at home kind of going, wow, wow, and just absolutely in shock?

KIERAN HANSEN: Well, I missed it because of the time zone. But I had a friend call me not long after and said, oh, you wouldn't believe what Steve did. And I said, no, what happened? He said he won. I went, oh, BS. I'm not going to show him either. I went, oh, shit. But he had not said, did everybody fall over? Did they? And he said, yep, everyone fell over. Which can happen. It's not uncommon in short track for that to happen. But then when I watched it, and I saw what happened in the quarterfinal and the semi-final and then the final, it was a pretty streaky run by Steve.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, what do you say to him when you next see him when he gets home? I mean, you just go, oh, you lucky little bastard.

KIERAN HANSEN: Oh, we probably partied harder than we did in 94. So basically, he had an invite to the Melbourne Grand Prix and was invited to bring his girlfriend, but she didn't want to go. So I went down, met him down there, and I was at the airport, and yeah, it was a pretty good moment.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, wow, that's incredible.

KIERAN HANSEN: We just probably partied for three days, I think.

BEN WATERWORTH: And you guys, it sounds like you just mentioned him before. I mean, you guys are still friends, obviously, to this day?

KIERAN HANSEN: Oh yeah, I've known Steve since I was 12 and spent pretty much 10, 11 years on the road with him. And yeah, we've been pretty good mates. He was my best man, and I think it was his wedding party. So, you know, we've been in contact the whole way through.

BEN WATERWORTH: Fantastic, fantastic. So, post-career then for you, Kieran, I mean, do you stay much involved in the sport or in kind of winter sports in general? I mean, to this day, is it still something that you sort of keep an eye on, I guess, how Short Track is going in this country?

KIERAN HANSEN: Not so close. I was in Singapore for nine years. I've only been back in Australia for 15, sort of 16 months now. So I haven't been close to the sport here, but I actually tried to spend a bit of time with the Singapore Scouting Association and help them kind of set up, did a bit of coaching there, did a bit of refereeing there, and helped them out, run some competitions. So I did that while I was in Singapore, but I've also went to the World Championships in Seoul last year, and went to Montreal World Championships a couple of years before that. And it's easy now to watch Short Track. You can watch it online. The International Skating Union broadcasts everything online now, so if you don't watch it live, you can go back and watch some of the races. So it's definitely changed a lot. I know the guys this year at the World Championships didn't do too bad, but it's very difficult to compete in a sport like that out of Australia now. The teams in Europe, Asia, North America, they're all on the ice six, seven days a week, twice a day, depending on the time of the year, and we just can't get that much ice time. It's expensive, and the rinks are managing. They've got to make money, so obviously public sessions, they run as many of those as they can. Figure skating brings in quite a bit of money and hockey, so it's very difficult to get the ice time.

BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know if you've ever been to Hobart or Kieran and seen the rink that we have down here. It's probably literally about as big as your living room that you're in right now, but it's the only one in the state. They play ice hockey on it. There's figure skating going on there, but I've never seen the speed skating on it. So I'd probably be way too small for it, but I don't know. We could maybe make, I guess, an exhibition event sort of similar to like a 2020 cricket shortened form. I don't know. I'm kind of intrigued to see what we could do with it.

KIERAN HANSEN: You'd have to use small skates.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, yes, yes. I haven't seen Hobart.

KIERAN HANSEN: No, I haven't seen the rink there though.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's next time you're down here, definitely check it out. And is it kind of after the medal? And then obviously, you know, since I guess Steven's medal, kind of in what you sort of have known from the sport within this country, did it really increase the interest then, sort of, I guess, post-Lilahama at least, that people saw this, saw you guys win the bronze and thought, hey, this looks awesome, I'm going to give this a crack.

KIERAN HANSEN: No, the sport went through tough times, I would say, through probably, definitely after 98, and the participation numbers dropped right down. It's only really now in the last 18 months, maybe two years, they've got back up to that 110 numbers at the national championship. So, I did struggle for a while there.

BEN WATERWORTH: And post your career, obviously, being retired now, I guess, for nearly 20 years now, Kieran, what are you up to now? What's the life of Kieran Hansen basically involved?

KIERAN HANSEN: Because I was an amateur athlete, and I kind of worked part-time. But I was very lucky that I was hired by Westpac in 1992, so that kind of gave me an opportunity and led into the sort of banking and finance world, running sort of IT projects and things like that. So, through that, I picked up an opportunity with a UK bank in Singapore. So, I spent nine years there, which was a lot of fun. And just moved back. So, my time these days is pretty much spent with the family. I've got a young six-year-old and a 21-year-old. So, they keep me busy, and then trying to play a bit of golf where I can, and then just trying to manage the waistline. I'll walk home from work twice a week.

BEN WATERWORTH: Sounds like a pretty good life. I mean, at what age do you show your six-year-old kind of tapes of dad sort of back in the day? I mean, do they already kind of know about your sort of past life as an Olympic medallist speed skater?

KIERAN HANSEN: Yeah, she kind of gets it now. You know, the Olympics in Rio, they did quite a few things with the school there. So I guess she was maybe a year younger than that now. So she's probably got a bit of a handle on it now. She probably really doesn't know what it means just yet. I think I tried to put it on the relay on a while ago, but she got bored after about 10 laps.

BEN WATERWORTH: Wow. Show the end. This is where daddy wins the medal, sweetheart. Come on, you've got to watch this. Exactly. She'll appreciate it one day, I'm sure. Kieran, this has been a lot of fun. I really do appreciate your time, mate, and it's been great to kind of go over this. And really, you know, kind of, as you mentioned, something that I guess doesn't come up a whole lot, but obviously something that still is such a great moment in the history of this nation, you know, and for you, of course, to be part of that, obviously still is a very proud moment, but we appreciate your time here, and thank you very much for joining us on Off The Podium today.

KIERAN HANSEN: You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

BEN WATERWORTH: Such a great chat, such an honour. And we also really need to thank, once again, Kieran for his time giving it to us and having a bit of a chat about his career. It was an absolute honour to chat to him. We have more coming your way. As always, we're approaching our 50th episode. Can you believe that? We're gonna be giving you a special kind of best of episode when we do reach that 50th mark. But in the meantime, if you missed out on any of our 47 episodes before this one, or you wanna hear them again, head to our Facebook page, like us there, Off The Podium Podcast. Or remember, you can go to iTunes, Stitcher, whatever you do use, like us on there. Find all our episodes, rate us, feedback, you know what to do. We tell you every episode, just reminding you once again what to do. Thanks once again for tuning in to Off The Podium, and we appreciate your support, and we appreciate your company on the show today. We'll speak to you next time, wherever you can hear my voice. Good night.