John's Story
The 4x400m relay silver medal won by the ‘Silver Bullets’ at the 2004 Olympic Games was only the second in Olympic athletics relay events by Australian men and the first since Gosper, Graham, Gipson and Lean won the same medal at the Melbourne 1956 Games. It was also the first medal won by Australian men on the Olympic athletics track since Rick Mitchell’s silver in the 400 metres at Moscow 1980. Australia (John Steffensen, Clinton Hill, Patrick Dwyer and Mark Ormrod) finished fifth in its qualifying heat and only progressed to the final after Jamaica was disqualified for a baton changing infringement. The gold medal winning margin of 4.67 seconds by the United States, with all the medallists from the individual 400 metres in its team, was the largest in this event at the Olympic Games. In the final the Australians changed their running order with Ormrod running the second leg and Hill the fourth. Hill received the baton at the start of the last leg in fifth position but passed three countries on his way to claim second place on the podium.
At Beijing 2008 Steffensen and Hill combined with Sean Wroe and Joel Milburn to place sixth in the relay final. The Sydneysider went on to compete in his third straight Olympic Games in London where the Australian 4x400m team finished fifth in their heat.
