Nizielski, Richard

BORN JULY 27TH 1968 in Nottingham, Great Britain, into a family with a Polish cultural heritage, he started skating at the age of 2, following in the footsteps of his parents, Anne and Jurek (Jerzy), who were recreational skaters. In June 1971, he departed Southampton at 3 with his family and settled in Maylands in Perth, Western Australia. In 1983, his father started a speed skating club at the Mirrabooka ice rink and Richard began competition.

"I hadn't decided to compete until the new club was formed," he later said. "I just got better at it and, with the nationals coming up, I decided to have a go". He won the Australian under-15 title in Sydney.

From 1983, he played local ice hockey with the Pirates and represented his state in both the Junior Ice Hockey Team and the Junior Short Track Speed Skating Team. In 1984, he again represented his state in Junior Ice Hockey Championships and won the Australian Sub-Junior Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Sydney. He is the state Institute of Sports' 1983-4 Athlete of the Year.

In early 1985, he represented his state in the national junior ice hockey championships, and also Australia in South Korea at the second Asian Oceanic Under-18 Championships. That same year, he competed for the senior national speed skating title and represented Australia for the first time in the sport in New Zealand in 1986. He also played for ice hockey's Brown Trophy, the Under-21 national, returning in 1987 and 1988.

Named to the national ice hockey All-Star team in 1988, he decided to concentrate on speed skating, and played his last Brown Trophy in 1989, the year he joined the Australian World Championship Team at Solihull, UK. At the 1990 Australian Speed Skating Championships, he finished third in the individual 1000m and second overall to New Zealander, Mike McMillan. In 1990, he again competed with the Australian World Championship Team in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Affiliated with the West Coast Speed Skating Club, he was a member of Australia’s short-track relay team that won the world championship in Sydney in 1991, the first world title won by Australia in a major winter sport. He returned to the 1992 Worlds in Denver, USA. A 500m individual specialist, he competed in the Men's 1,000m at the Albertville Olympic Games in 1992, and in the Men's 5,000m relay where the squad's chances of success ended with his fall. Setting a national record for the 500m individual event in 1993, he rebounded with the National Relay Team to win World Championship medals in 1993 and '94. He won the 500m Individual event in the Dutch Open Championships four times between 1993 and 1996.

At the 1994 Games at Lillehammer, he was a vital member of the team that won Australia's first Winter Olympic medal, Bronze in the men's 5,000m relay, competing alongside Steven Bradbury, Kieran Hansen and Andrew Murtha. It was Nizielski who flashed across the finish line in the relay for Australia. After abandoning a fight for track position for the Silver, he later said, "At the last change Eric Flaim (USA) got a good push away and he stepped underneath my feet and stopped me. I thought, well, I'm not going to fight him for this. I didn't want to let the team down. And I was very aware that I had taken a fall in Albertville. I just wanted to get through to the medal." He finished 10th in the 500m individual event, and 13th in 1,000m.

Retiring after a return with the National Relay Team at the 1998 Nagano Games, where Australia placed 8th, he worked as a fight co-ordinator in theatre and television. He qualified as a golf instructor, wrote about the sport for magazines, and continued to mentor young Australian speed skaters. The first West Australian to compete in the Winter Olympics, Nizielski carried the flag in the opening ceremony of the 1998 Winter Games. He is one of four of the nation's first Winter Olympic medallists.