Researching Colin Hickey

He was born in Fairfield, Victoria.

Hickey became a "rink rat" when his father took him to the Glaciarium in Melbourne. "I felt an affinity with it" he recalled, saying "To do it well is to feel like a bird flying." He earned the money to buy skates from selling newspapers. To get to the Glacarium from his place in Fairfield, he had to walk, take a bus and then a train. He tried ice hockey, but because of his small frame (he grew up to be 162 centimetres and weigh 56 kilograms), he was overlooked, and took up speed skating.

He took a ship to Europe to reach the speed skating hub of Norway. He worked as a lumberjack, and learned to speak the local language. "We did it hard, lived maybe two weeks at a time on just museli. It was difficult, but I had some of the best times of my life then. What was good was that they [the Australian authorities] had no control over me. We just did it all by the seat of our pants. All they'd do was tell me what times I had to do to qualify for selection, and it would be up to me." He found changing from indoor skating in Australia to skating outside in Norway a major change "It was like going from ping-pong to lawn tennis, from dirt-track to Grand Prix ... the outdoor was so much more demanding, in terms of strength and technique."

He said that conditions for Australian Winter Olympians used to be basic:

:We didn't get a uniform. I never had an Australian blazer once in three Olympics. In 1952, because King George had died, they issued us with a black armband and tie for the opening ceremony. Nothing else. You wore it with whatever you had. I had a green sweater and ski slacks. In 1956 I was issued with no gear at all, even though I was the best-performed member of the team by about a hundred per cent. I couldn't march without any kind of uniform, so I stayed in the hotel. In 1960 they gave us a duffle coat and a sweater and that covered everything you had. That was it. You had to look after yourself.

Talking in 1993 about Sonnpark, a joint Australian-Austrian facility for winter and summer sports, he said "Yeah. It's great ... I reckon it would have made life a bit easier in the old days. With that sort of back-up, we'd have given them [the Europeans] a run for their money."