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Speaker 1: First, Yeah, welcome friends to the Christian O'Connell Show podcast.

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Speaker 2: This week we've been hearing these amazing stories from Australian

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Speaker 2: gold medal winners taking us back to their golden moments.

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Speaker 2: Today is an incredible one and a story's actually got

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Speaker 2: when you hear this, five or six different even stories

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Speaker 2: within it. We're going back to Michael Klem. Michael reflect

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Speaker 2: on the most memorable golden moments in Australian sporting history

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Speaker 2: when he was part of the gold winning team in

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Speaker 2: the men's four by one hundred meters freestyle relay at

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Speaker 2: the two thousand Sydney Games. We heard this yesterday after

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Speaker 2: the show getting it ready to play, you guys, and

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Speaker 2: when and watched it yesterday's afternoon and it gave me goosebumps.

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Speaker 2: You know when you watching someone and you get so

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Speaker 2: involved in the emotion of it. I felt like it

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Speaker 2: was happening life so funny. I don't know why what

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Speaker 2: was going on.

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Speaker 3: Thorpy is behind towards the end of the race.

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Speaker 2: I don't think he will make it. I don't think

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Speaker 2: he will make it. And Thorpe is it was just

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Speaker 2: seventeen at the time, he was a boy it's incredible

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Speaker 2: what they happened. Yeah, anyway, let Michael take you there now,

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Speaker 2: how would listen to.

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Speaker 1: This quest you O'Connell's golden moments coming down to the

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Speaker 1: Games in Paris. Michael clem at the two thousand Sydney

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Speaker 1: Games winning gold in the four x one hundred meter

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Speaker 1: freestyle relays.

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Speaker 3: They've just introduced the Americans. Never had we beaten them

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Speaker 3: in the four x one freestyle relay since the inception

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Speaker 3: of the event. They had this really kind of smug

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Speaker 3: and confident look on their face. As they announced Australia,

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Speaker 3: that whole place erupted. There's a long whistle. We can

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Speaker 3: still hear the crowd screaming in support, and over a

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Speaker 3: few seconds, that whole crowd everything dies down. And it's bizarre,

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Speaker 3: the silence of seventeen and a half thousand people with

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Speaker 3: almost like this pin drop of anticipation about to happen.

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Speaker 3: Everyone is kind of waiting, almost holding their breath. I

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Speaker 3: could almost feel my heart beating with my lead off leg.

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Speaker 3: I just went out as hard as I possibly could,

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Speaker 3: And for me, it was just a manner of getting

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Speaker 3: to the warfast, getting to the warfirst. Yeah, it was

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Speaker 3: definitely the best swim I had ever put together. The

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Speaker 3: emotions after that one. I was a little bit taken

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Speaker 3: back by the fact that I had broken the word

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Speaker 3: record of my idol, but you know, in the whole

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Speaker 3: scheme of what we were doing, it really didn't matter.

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Speaker 3: I did check with Thorpy if that time was correct.

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Speaker 3: You know, he shut me down pretty quickly, saying, just

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Speaker 3: don't worry about it, Let's just finish this race. The crowd,

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Speaker 3: I thought it couldn't get any louder. When the crowd

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Speaker 3: realized that we were in this race and potentially with

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Speaker 3: a big chance to win, it just got bigger and bigger.

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Speaker 3: The Americans would try to catch up to us or

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Speaker 3: overtake us, and by the time Thorpy was diving in

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Speaker 3: with just forty eight seconds left in that relay, pretty

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Speaker 3: much the entire Grandstairs was on their feet. The crowd

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Speaker 3: was at this maximum volume. That last thirty seconds felt

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Speaker 3: like an eternity for me because it couldn't really tell

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Speaker 3: the difference between Ian and Gary Haare. Thorpy came off

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Speaker 3: that turn and he felt that he had a little

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Speaker 3: bit of a sniff that we can potentially get him

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Speaker 3: back in that last leg he went into overdrive. We

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Speaker 3: could see the momentum shift and Thorpie had a little

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Speaker 3: bit more speed coming into the war. And we were

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Speaker 3: leaning literally watching the war and when we could see

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Speaker 3: that his hand touched first less than point one of

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Speaker 3: the second faster than the Americans is something's very very special.

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Speaker 3: We literally yang Thorpe try to get him out of

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Speaker 3: the pool and then this kind of random celebration began

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Speaker 3: of the e guitars victory from nowhere and it was

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Speaker 3: a very special moment to do it in front of

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Speaker 3: your home, proud and do it for the Istral people.

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Speaker 3: We did have one moment where we kind of just

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Speaker 3: snuggled in just the four of us were just acknowledged,

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Speaker 3: were just granted history and the rest is literally history.

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Speaker 2: And O'Connell Show podcast