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The World and Everything In It
2.16.26 Supreme Court justices’ clash over retirement-plan calculations, Trump’s move against climate regulation, and Australia’s unexpected Olympic gold
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- [00:06]
Mary Reichert
Good morning. The Supreme Court takes up a fight over retirement math. At issue, whether companies get certainty or pension funds get accuracy.
- [00:15]
David Bonson
Those are all just facts out in the world that can't be changed because of what someone thinks about them.
- [00:19]
Nick Eicher
That's a head on legal docket. Also today, the Monday money beat AI Shakes up the company's betting on AI David Bonson is standing by. And later, the world history book. An underdog from down under makes his Olympic comeback.
- [00:34]
David Bonson
She says, steve, you don't stand a chance. Stay out of the way, hope for a mistake and pick up a bronze.
- [00:47]
Mary Reichert
It's Monday, February 16th. This is the world and everything in it. From listener supported World Radio, I'm Mary Reinkert.
- [00:54]
Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Iger. Good morning.
- [00:58]
Mary Reichert
Up next, Kent Covington with today's news.
- [01:02]
Nick Eicher
The Department of Homeland Security shutdown continues with no end in sight. Democrats continue to deny funding as they demand changes to immigration enforcement. Republicans agreed to some of those demands, but said others would hinder or endanger enforcement agents. Border czar Tom Holman said the administration will not require agents to remove masks or display ID numbers. He said that would open agents up to personal targeting. Republican Congressman Tom Cole said of Democrats.
- [01:29]
David Bonson
What they've managed to do is shut down or make sure the Secret Service isn't paid, make sure TSA and air traffic controllers don't get paid, make sure the Coast Guard doesn't get paid, make sure that we don't have FEMA to.
- [01:42]
Nick Eicher
Take care of any disaster. But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats intend to, quote, hold the line.
- [01:49]
David Bonson
And it's on Republicans if the Coast Guard shuts down, if FEMA is shut down, and if TSA is shut down.
- [01:57]
Nick Eicher
Congress won't return until next Monday, meaning homeland security almost certainly will not be funded anytime this week. President Trump says members of his newly created Board of peace have pledged $5 billion to rebuild Gaza and will commit thousands of personnel to help provide security and stabilize police forces for the territory. Trump said Sunday that the pledges will be formally announced when members of the board gather for their first meeting Thursday in Washington. Speaking in Germany over the weekend, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told European leaders that America wants to strengthen its friendship with its largest ally. But he also lamented what the Trump administration sees as Western decline in Europe.
- [02:38]
David Bonson
We do not want our allies to be weak because that makes us weaker. We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength.
- [02:50]
Nick Eicher
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Rubio pushed the Trump administration's priorities. He talked about controlling mass migration, building stronger economies and boosting military strength. And on the military component, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer echoed that message. He told fellow leaders that Europe must be ready to stand on its own two feet when it comes to defense. Starmer also announced that the UK Will send its carrier strike group to the Arctic this year. But the EU's foreign policy chief pushed back on Rubio's criticisms. Kaikalis rejected the notion that immigration policies and declining birth rates have Europe on the decline.
- [03:29]
Mary Reichert
Contrary to what some may say woke decadent, Europe is not facing civilizational erasure. In fact, people still want to join.
- [03:39]
Nick Eicher
Our club, collis said. When visiting Canada last year, she was told that more than 40% of Canadians have an interest in joining the European Union, and she said there is a long waiting list to join the eu. She also said she rejects what she called European bashing. A powerful winter storm is slamming California this week, bringing damaging winds and heavy snow to mountain areas. Jacob Spender with the National Weather Service.
- [04:05]
David Bonson
If you are up in the higher elevations, at the highest elevations within the Sierra, the Coastal range, and those areas like the Southern Cascades as well, we're looking at 4 to 8ft, he said.
- [04:17]
Nick Eicher
Lower elevations could see a foot of snow, along with showers and thunderstorms in the valley. Meantime, a strong storm system is bringing tornado watches and widespread damage across the Southeast just as the Northeast starts to warm up. On Sunday, the National Weather Service reported some of the worst damage near Lake Charles, Louisiana. High winds overturned a horse trailer and a Mardi Gras float. They also damaged an airport jet bridge and knocked an awning into power lines. I'm Kent Covington, and straight ahead, the Supreme Court takes up a fight over retirement math and later, the world history book. This is the World and Everything in It.
- [05:16]
Mary Reichert
It's the World and everything in it for February 16, 2026. So glad you're listening. Good morning. I'm Mary Reichert.
- [05:23]
Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Eichert. Time now for legal docket. Today we'll tell you about two disputes before the US Supreme Court, both of them a little technical, but both boiling down to a simple question about pensions and investment funds, namely, when the numbers change, who has to pay, and when retirement promises or shareholder rights are on the line. That answer matters, whether you manage the money yourself or you don't. We'll begin with pensions and some background on how some of them work. When several companies join together in a shared retirement plan, they promise benefits to workers that may take decades to pay out.
- [06:04]
Mary Reichert
If one company decides to leave that plan, it doesn't just get to walk away. It has to pay its share of any shortfall, that is to say, money promised but not fully funded. In this case, the departing company believed the bill for the shortfall was just shy of 2 million doll. But weeks later, it got worse, like more than three times worse. The pension fund adjusted one of its financial assumptions and the bill jumped to $6 million plus. The Supreme Court now has to decide whether that later adjustment was fair accounting or whether the number was supposed to be locked in at year's end.
- [06:40]
Nick Eicher
The dispute, as so many of these do, turns on two small words in federal pension law. As of the law says the exit fee must be calculated as of the last day of the plan year. In this case, December 31st. M&K Employee Solutions argues that means you use the assumptions in place on that day. No hindsight, no future revisions. The pension fund says it can consider information that was already known, even if the formal adjustment didn't come until a few weeks later.
- [07:14]
Mary Reichert
And here the change of a single percentage point in the assumed rate of return from 7.5% to 6.5, compounded over decades, made all the difference. Justice Clarence Thomas zeroed in on that point with the lawyer for M and K, Michael Keneally.
- [07:31]
Nick Eicher
So is the discount rate the major.
- [07:33]
David Bonson
Factor in the cost differential? Yes, it is, you, Honor. And that's because of the compounding of interest over time and has an exponential.
- [07:41]
Mary Reichert
Effect on the amount of if the number is frozen at year end, companies get certainty. If the number can be updated, pension plans get accuracy. The justices tested just how rigid the rule would be.
- [07:53]
Nick Eicher
Chief Justice John Roberts tested M&K's bright line rule with a hypothetical that if companies have given all of their information on December 31st and on January 1st.
- [08:05]
David Bonson
One of the companies mails in and saying, you know, we forgot to count all of our accountants, you know, 55 of them. You should add them to the numbers we sent you. Can the pension fund do that? Yes, you, Honor.
- [08:18]
Nick Eicher
The key, the key that exchange exposed the problem. If some new information after December 31st can be considered, well, where do you draw the line on all new information? M and K wanted to draw it between objective facts and professional judgment, not mere math.
- [08:36]
David Bonson
And so there are objective facts out in the world, like the amount of plan assets or the number of retirees. Those are all just facts out in the world that can't be changed because of what someone thinks about them. But actuarial assumptions are fundamentally unlike that. They are judgments about 10 to 40 years of future experience is the plan.
- [08:54]
Mary Reichert
In other words, counting accountants is one thing. Rewriting decades of future assumptions is another. Chief Justice Roberts pushed further. What about real world shocks, events so significant they upend financial forecasts overnight?
- [09:10]
David Bonson
There must be situations where it is a more dramatic change, whether it's, I don't know, the start of World War II, Pearl harbor, it seems to me that there ought to be some basis where their assumptions that were made are fairly. Are dramatically different and the liability is placed on the company as of the time they depart, Right? No. As of the date of the end of the prior year, December 31st. Right. Congress chose not to make it the date of the withdrawal, and I think they did that. So every withdrawing employer who withdraws in the same year will be charged the same amount of withdrawal liability.
- [09:45]
Mary Reichert
That question gets to the heart of the dispute. Should the law lock in assumptions for predictability or allow adjustments when reality shifts?
- [09:54]
Nick Eicher
Now, the person who makes those predictions is called an actuary, essentially the risk forecaster for the pension plan. An actuary estimates how much money the fund will need decades into the future, weighing life expectancy, expected returns on investments and a host of other assumptions. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pressed that role directly. Covid's a major change.
- [10:18]
Mary Reichert
Let's say it happens in January or February of the year after and it's going to make a difference, thinks the.
- [10:25]
David Bonson
Actuary, in terms of this plan's performance. I think under your rule they would.
- [10:31]
Mary Reichert
Have to ignore that right, because it.
- [10:32]
David Bonson
Didn'T happen during the plan year.
- [10:34]
Mary Reichert
And I guess how is that consistent with Congress's statement that the actuary is supposed to be making their best judgment? Her question went to the core requirement of the statute. If Congress tells an actuary to use his best judgment, can the law really force that professional to ignore a known economic shock simply because it happened in January instead of December? Justice Brett Kavanaugh took it a step further, focusing on the statute's own language.
- [11:00]
Nick Eicher
The companies would prohibit the plan's actuary from considering those events when calculating withdrawal liability. That that's in tension with the word reasonable intention, with the statutory word best estimate.
- [11:14]
David Bonson
And under your view, the actuary would.
- [11:17]
Nick Eicher
Be reduced to admitting that its assumptions were wrong.
- [11:19]
David Bonson
You want to respond to that? Sure, you, Honor. I think that that's an unrealistic view view of how interest rate assumptions in this context work, because we're talking about retirement payments for two to four decades into the future. Even a shock such as the 2008 financial crisis here, which you think if any market event would change actuarial assumptions, that would?
- [11:37]
Mary Reichert
Meaning if the actuary has to use a reasonable and best estimate, can the law really require it to pretend known events did not happen?
- [11:47]
Nick Eicher
Multi employer pension plans cover millions of workers. Companies that leave want certainty about what they owe. But workers depend on accurate funding to protect their benefits. The Supreme Court has to decide whether, as of means, frozen in time or flexible enough to reflect reality.
- [12:06]
Mary Reichert
Several justices appeared skeptical that Congress meant to freeze assumptions in place when markets can shift dramatically. The case is officially listed as M and K Employee Solutions versus Trustees of the IAM national pension fund.
- [12:21]
Nick Eicher
Alright, so the first case was about who pays when the math changes. The second one is about who gets to sue when the management changes. At its core, it's a question of enforcement power. When an investment fund breaks the rules, can shareholders take them to court themselves? Or is that a job only the government can do?
- [12:41]
Mary Reichert
Saba Capital Management is what's known as an activist investor. It buys large stakes in investment funds it thinks are underperforming and then pushes for changes. Or one of those funds is FS Credit Opportunities Corporation, known as fsco. When Saba built up a significant stake, FSCO triggered what are sometimes called poison pill rules, bylaws designed to limit the voting power of any single large shareholder. In other words, to keep Saba from taking over.
- [13:11]
Nick Eicher
So Saba sued under the Federal Investment company Act of 1940, arguing those poison pill provisions violate the law, which requires equal voting rights. But the Supreme Court has not decided whether poison pills are good or bad. Instead, it's asking a more foundational question. Does federal law allow private investors like Saba to sue at all? The statute does not explicitly say that shareholders can bring their own lawsuits to enforce it. So the question is whether courts should imply that right, whether they should leave enforcement solely to government regulators like the securities and Exchange Commission.
- [13:48]
Mary Reichert
FSCO's lawyer, Shai Devaretsky, argued against any implied right of action.
- [13:53]
David Bonson
The court should leave private rights of action to Congress Congress and reject Saba and the 2nd Circuit's unworkable return to the ancien regime.
- [14:00]
Mary Reichert
His argument was straightforward. If Congress wanted private lawsuits, it could have said so. Courts should not invent rights that lawmakers did not write. Justice Sonia Sotomayor thought otherwise, reading from House and Senate reports that show Congress expected courts to imply private rights of action under the statute.
- [14:19]
David Bonson
I know that many of my colleagues don't believe in statutory history, but I don't know how much more decisive on congressional intent than those statements are.
- [14:32]
Mary Reichert
Justice Elena Kagan leaned that direction as well, pointing to similar legislation.
- [14:37]
David Bonson
You would really have us look at these two companion pieces of legislation passed at the same time and say that the exact same language has one result in one statute and the other other result in another statute. That seems like a pretty extreme position, honestly.
- [14:53]
Nick Eicher
Justice Neil Gorsuch reframed the debate as a separation of powers issue. Even if private lawsuits might be useful, he suggested that is not the court's job to decide. Listen to this exchange with Paul Clement, lawyer for saba. Less disastrous for private litigants, perhaps, but pretty disastrous for our system of government where the people are supposed to write the law, laws that govern them, not judges.
- [15:18]
David Bonson
Yeah, I get it. But you get it.
- [15:20]
Nick Eicher
The separation of powers might be disastrous.
- [15:23]
David Bonson
No, I get it.
- [15:24]
Mary Reichert
So two very different cases, one about pension math, the other about investment bylaws. But both ask a similar question when the rules are unclear who bears the risk and who gets to enforce them. And that's this week's legal docket.
- [15:50]
Nick Eicher
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- [16:33]
Mary Reichert
Coming up next on THE WORLD and everything in it, the Monday Money Beat.
- [16:39]
Nick Eicher
Time now to talk business markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bonson. David heads up the wealth management firm the Bonson Group, and he is here now. David, good morning to you.
- [16:51]
David Bonson
Well, good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.
- [16:52]
Nick Eicher
Well, David, let's begin with the EPA's move to rescind the Obama era endangerment finding. That, of course, the legal foundation for federal climate regulation and some analysts are saying that consumers won't feel much impact there because many of the major rules never fully took effect. But whether it's true or not at the consumer level, do you think that it changes the investment climate for the energy industry, particularly when it comes to capital expenditures?
- [17:24]
David Bonson
Yeah, I think that we have to understand that these things have a sort of chain reaction to them. And particularly this endangerment finding that was used pretextually to rationalize a lot of EPA intervention and a lot of cost in particular. Your point about capex is a good one, that there is some loosening of the concerns about capital expenditures into the energy industry when this, amongst other things, looms over people. The general finding that was used to sort of haunt people from doing investment in essentially carbon and the fossil fuel industry has taken a blow. I think that there are other issues that still linger. That broader cultural context still matters and that has been more favorable over the years anyways, but not because there has been a movement away from, for example, this endangerment finding as much as there's been a movement away from the alternatives that people have not found the intermittent sources of energy from so called clean or green energy solutions to be reliable. What this does to me, the reason I like the fact that President Trump did this goes beyond though just the fact that some energy company might wake up the next day and now decide to go forward with a particular project. I don't think it's quite that linear. What it does though is set a broader cultural context in which there is a movement for the energy industry to recognize the need for ongoing investment in oil and gas. And by the way, then that incentivizes people to find cleaner ways to do that. That's where we've moved the needle the most. And the best example of that has been greater use of natural gas versus crude oil and particularly coal. So ironically, I think what the Obama era stipulation did was disincentivize natural gas, which would have been by far a cleaner sol than where many had gone anyways, particularly in China.
- [19:45]
Nick Eicher
Well, so David, say that you're an energy executive or just an energy investor. How much weight do you put on something like this and how permanent does it feel?
- [19:54]
David Bonson
I don't think it's as simple as just this. I mean, it is true that anything an executive branch can do can be done away by another executive branch. So I don't think it's a matter of them setting policy around what was done before or what has been undone now. It's more reading the tea leaves of the broader cultural context. That's why I keep using that phrase, Nick. Very little of our environmental or energy policies have been legislated. So energy companies 15 years ago, 20 years ago, only had the whims of an executive branch decision to go off of. And that's all they have now as well. So I do think that it is a factor in their calculus. But the broader issue is where the overall cultural context is and this moves the Overton window in that regard.
- [20:50]
Nick Eicher
All right, David. Well, we got some fresh economic data this past week. Inflation cooled to 2.4% year on year. That was helped out by lower prices at the gasoline pump. And the jobs report showed some modest gains. But and it seems there's always a But with these reports, this one included downward revisions to prior months. So let's take the two of those together, the inflation and the labor data. What do these numbers say about where the economy stands?
- [21:22]
David Bonson
They say the same thing that we've been talking about for quite some time, which is this push pull, you know, mixed bag. The biggest issue though is with shelter that it is still showing annual increases of 3%, but that is much lower than what had been 4 or 5. And this is the thing I've been talking about for a long time and why the inflation numbers were always inevitably going to be coming lower. I happen to think they're even lower than three in real time market indicators. But the way it's measured in the CPI, it's still come down to 3, which is much lower than the over 4% it was before. The issue with jobs is much more complicated because you did have a higher than expected number. It's still much lower than what our trendline growth had been. But then one side of the pool filled up a bit, the other side of the pool cleaned out a bit because of the revisions that you talk about. So as long as we're still getting these heavy revisions later, it's hard for us to have confidence in the real time numbers. The private sector data does not speak to a robust jobs environment, but none of the data speaks to a ton of firings. It just doesn't speak to a ton of hirings. And so if you have a sort of, you know, run in place jobs environment, that's not the worst thing. It's not recessionary, but you do want to see more jobs being created.
- [22:54]
Nick Eicher
Well, David, market story this past week. A new AI tool from Anthropic that automates legal and compliance work. It triggered a sell off in software stocks. Investors realizing that AI may disrupt some of the very companies that were expected to benefit from it. So what do you think? Are we seeing a classic example of creative destruction or maybe just a balancing of stock prices that were way too expensive?
- [23:22]
David Bonson
Well, we're not seeing it yet, but we're certainly aware that it's coming and it should be something that people are excited about in the sense that if there was a tool on the horizon that is going to make something, something be done better or be done more efficiently, that sounds like a very good thing. I think from an investment standpoint that the issue is not so much, oh, we didn't know a tool was coming that would be disruptive as much as some of these software companies are so overpriced that Their prices don't reflect some of these things. And then you need a catalyst to reprice. And a catalyst in the form of successful unleashing of a new product from Anthropic, for example, is the type of thing that sometimes results in what we refer to as a repricing. This is very much a story of the software industry. Had been trading at 28 times earnings and it re rated to 23 times earnings. 23 is still not cheap. 23 is not saying, oh, creative destruction's coming. AI is putting us out of business. That would be about 15 times or 12 times earnings. It's just repriced because the 28 was too expensive and was not accounting from an excessive valuation, was not accounting for some of the disruptions and so forth. I continue to not be even remotely in the AI doomsdayish camp. That suggests that AI is just going to make it that no one has a job anymore. I think that represents a profound misunderstanding of how humanity works. But I do believe that overpriced stocks are vulnerable to any form of catalyst that disrupts their margins, their model, their utility. And we got a bit of a sign for that. And that's. And that's what you've seen, not just last week, but even over the last several months, that there's been a bit of rotation in the stock market around some of these realities.
- [25:19]
Nick Eicher
Right. And in Dividend Cafe you make the point that efficiency gains from AI are not the same thing as real economic growth. What do you think would have to happen for AI to translate into measurable output, not just cutting costs, positive as that is, for profit margins?
- [25:37]
David Bonson
Yeah, it was a, it's a major theme in the discussion many economists are having about macroeconomists are having about AI. I think that the possibility is there. You know, I'll recap for world listeners what you're talking about that may not read dividendcafe.com arguing that AI makes something done quicker or makes it done more efficiently is not the same as arguing that you're getting more things made. And the argument to rebut that is if you can get things done quicker, then you can get more things done, period. And it would increase output. The problem with that argument, Nick, is that the story of digital technology and the Internet was not a story of getting more done. It was getting things done in a better way and then being content with that. The productivity did not rise in concert with the enhanced efficiency. So we are at risk of making a mistake of confusing activity with output. And I don't know very many people that have played around with AI a bit who don't know that it's going to benefit activity and efficiency. But seeing it lead to greater production of goods and services, services, a higher output that then creates tangible value, that's the big question. And I'm bullish that AI will be transformative, but I am not bullish that that is all going to be imminent and clean and go as expected. I believe there will be some bumpy rides along the way.
- [27:09]
Nick Eicher
All right. David Bonson is founder, managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bonson Group. He writes@dividendcafe.com and at World Opinions. David, I hope you have a great week. We'll talk to you next time.
- [27:21]
David Bonson
Thanks so much, Nick.
- [27:45]
Nick Eicher
Today is Monday, February 16th. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I'm Nick Eicher.
- [27:52]
Mary Reichert
And I'm Mary Reichardt. Up next, the world history book. Today, an unlikely Olympic victory at the highest level of sport. Talent and pressure collide. Figure skating fans saw it Friday. Heavy favorite Ilya Malinin of the United States fell from first place all the way to eighth, opening the door for Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan to claim his country's first ever gold in figure skating.
- [28:18]
Nick Eicher
But that's not the first time Olympic chaos crowned an unexpected champ. 24 years ago this week in Salt Lake City, a dramatic speed skating final delivered one of the most improbable wins in Winter Games history and gave Australians a new phrase doing a Bradbury World's. Amy Lewis has the story.
- [28:39]
Mary Reichert
Steven Bradbury started training in speed skating as a teenager in Brisbane.
- [28:43]
Nick Eicher
Stephen Bradbury, that man right there skating.
- [28:46]
Mary Reichert
For him his place in Australian sporting immortality. It's an unlikely place to excel as a winter athlete.
- [28:54]
David Bonson
Huge role as Bradbury gets introduced.
- [28:56]
Mary Reichert
Audio here from Neds, Australia.
- [28:58]
David Bonson
You know, I was training in complete anonymity, doing it on a shoestring. We didn't have the budget. We didn't have all the bells and whistles that other countries around the world had.
- [29:08]
Mary Reichert
In 1994, Bradbury qualified for the Winter Olympics. His team traveled to Norway and skated in the men's relay with a simple plan. Stay on their feet, don't get disqualified, and beat one of the three other finalist teams. Halfway through the race, the Canadian skater fell. That left the Americans to jockey with the Australians for second place. The Australians chose the safer route.
- [29:32]
David Bonson
They won the Bronze Medal in 94.
- [29:34]
Mary Reichert
Richard Baca researches the Olympics at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He's been involved with the Olympics for over 50 years. That third place relay in 94 marked Australia's first medal in the history of the Winter Olympics. But Bradbury's career soon became marked by disappointment.
- [29:53]
David Bonson
Then had his big accident in Montreal.
- [29:55]
Nick Eicher
At a speed skating event and slashed.
- [29:57]
David Bonson
His thigh with 100 and something stitches.
- [30:00]
Mary Reichert
During the 94 World cup race, the blade of another skater's skate went through all four quadriceps in his thigh with a heart rate of 200 beats per minute. During the race, he quickly lost more than four quarts of blood on the ice. He survived, but needed 18 months to recover. His 1998 Olympics races ended in disappointment when other skaters fell in front of him or knocked him over.
- [30:24]
David Bonson
He also had other injuries along the.
- [30:27]
Mary Reichert
Way, like when he jumped over fallen skaters and rammed head first into the barrier. He broke his neck. Doctors said he wouldn't skate again. Less than two years later, he was competing at the 2002 Winter Olympics. He rose through the ranks to compete in the short track finals against 19 year old American Apolo Ohno and three others for the gold. As the skaters entered the ice, the crowd went wild for the Americans. There he is, the hometown favorite, the.
- [30:54]
Nick Eicher
Hot favorite, the man 16,000 people have.
- [30:58]
Mary Reichert
Come expecting to see take away the gold in the men's 1000. Apollo Anton Ono. At 28, Bradbury was the oldest skater on the ice and the only one from the southern hemisphere. But he told his trainer, An Zhong that he felt he could take on the world's top four skaters. This is how he described it later in a motivational video.
- [31:20]
David Bonson
She said, steve, you don't stand a chance. Stay out of the way, hope for a mistake and pick up a bronze.
- [31:28]
Mary Reichert
She knew the other skaters would likely take more chances than usual in a race with with medals on the line.
- [31:33]
David Bonson
Baca again, short track speed skating is like roller derby. It's got a lot of things that can happen.
- [31:39]
Mary Reichert
While Australians slept on the other side of the globe, the skaters lined up. Bradbury was closest to the outside wall in the least favored position. The five competitors dug the toes of their skates into the ice, ready to start. Away they go.
- [31:55]
David Bonson
Stephen Bradbury was content in his semi to sit at the back.
- [31:59]
Nick Eicher
And it looks like he'll do that again just here.
- [32:01]
Mary Reichert
The other skate skaters vied for first place while Bradbury followed the pack by almost a half lap.
- [32:06]
David Bonson
But the Chinese skater on the outside. Oh, and it's a lot of contact.
- [32:10]
Mary Reichert
Oh, they've all gone down.
- [32:11]
David Bonson
Bradbury is going to come through and win gold. Steven Bradbury from the tail of the field.
- [32:19]
Mary Reichert
But the cheers quickly changed to boos. Bradbury's initial expression of shocked happiness took on a more restrained appearance. Behind him, two of the down competitors scrambled across the line and secured second and third places. Bradbury says he wasn't sure how to react. Should he accept the gold just because he was the last man standing?
- [32:41]
David Bonson
The way I won gold was obviously very different than other athletes in other sports.
- [32:47]
Mary Reichert
In the end, he accepted the gold for Australia, not just for that race, but for all the work and training before it.
- [32:53]
Nick Eicher
I train my guts out five hours.
- [32:55]
David Bonson
A day, six days a week for 14 years to put myself in that position.
- [32:59]
Mary Reichert
Bradbury's name has become synonymous with unexpected success.
- [33:03]
David Bonson
It's a legacy thing now. Doing a Bradbury now means to win in unlucky or unusual circumstances. And I remember reading once in a horse race that the horse came from the back of the pack and did a Bradbury.
- [33:15]
Mary Reichert
Bradbury's gold medal was Australia's and the entire Southern hemisphere's first in the Winter Olympics. But Bradbury says it was another moment that was his most satisfying.
- [33:27]
David Bonson
So I got into the semis, and for me, that was the moment of complete satisfaction because I went to that fourth Olympic Games purely to skate my best. That's the highlight of my life. Gold medal has nothing to do with it.
- [33:44]
Mary Reichert
That's this week's world history book. I'm Amy Lewis. Tomorrow, concerns about a new nuclear arms race. We'll talk about what's changing. And a pilot's family works through the aftermath of a crash. That and more tomorrow. I'm Mary Reichert.
- [34:20]
Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Eicher. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. The Bible says doing wrong is like a joke to a fool, but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding. Proverbs 10:23. Go now in grace and peace.