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Wednesday, September 27
Karelin loses first-ever international match
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia -- Rulon Gardner did the unthinkable. He
beat the unbeatable. He proved that Alexander Karelin isn't perfect
-- and he won a gold medal that virtually nobody in the world
thought he could win.
|  | | American Rulon Gardner, left, will go down in wrestling history for his stunning 1-0 defeat of Russian great Alexander Karelin. |
Gardner, never an NCAA champion, never a world medalist, ended
Karelin's string of three Olympic gold medals and 13-year unbeaten
streak by winning the Olympic super heavyweight wrestling gold
medal 1-0 Wednesday.
Miracle on ice? This was the miracle on the mat.
"When did I think I could beat him? About 10 minutes ago,"
Gardner said. "I kept saying, `I think I can. I think I can.' But
it wasn't until it was over that I knew I could."
Karelin is universally considered the greatest Greco-Roman
wrestler of all time, a man who had never lost in international
competition, who had not been scored upon in 10 years.
And Gardner beat him, stunning a crowd that included IOC
president Juan Antonio Samaranch, who had come to present Karelin
with his fourth gold medal -- the medal he will never get.
"What does this mean? He just beat the best wrestler in the
history of wrestling -- a wrestler who had never been beat," U.S.
national Greco-Roman coach Steve Fraser said.
The upset was so stunning that virtually no one in the crowd in
the Sydney Exhibition Hall, outside of Gardner's immediate family,
could believe it. Nor could Karelin, who, Gardner said, "mumbled a
few words at me in Russian toward the end. I don't know what he
said."
The Russian's gold medal was seen as a lock. As big a lock as
the Soviet Union was to beat a bunch of U.S. collegians in hockey
in 1980.
This upset certainly was comparable -- Gardner, whose best finish
ever in world competition was a fifth place, somehow beating a man
so feared that two prior Olympic finalists essentially quit on the
mat rather than keep absorbing the pounding they were taking.
"He's so big and nasty, it's like a horse pushing you,"
Gardner said. "I'm not as strong as him -- not even close. I knew
if I let him push me around, get even two or three points on me, it
was over."
But Gardner, a former University of Nebraska wrestler who walked
on to the football team but quit to wrestle full time, said
beforehand that he had a strategy to counter Karelin's dreaded
lifts and relentless pressure. That he even expected to "have some
fun with Karelin."
Gardner, his chest spilling out of his tight blue U.S. singlet,
proved early that he wouldn't be outmuscled by a man whose last
loss of any kind came in the 1987 Soviet championships.
Karelin, whose throwing skills are so renowned that he has a
lift named for him, tried to throw Gardner around in the first two
minutes but couldn't. Gardner stayed chest-to-chest,
shoulder-to-shoulder, never letting Karelin get leverage or a
chance to toss him to score points.
The key moment came after the first scoreless three minutes. At
that point, the wrestlers begin the second period with a clinch and
must remain locked until one executes a scoring move or releases
his lock.
As the two powered each other to the side of the mat, Gardner
managed to keep his hands clinched, but Karelin's slipped apart. It
took 90 seconds of replay by the mat judges to confirm that
Karelin's hands had separated, but it was clear that they had.
The score went up: 1-0, Gardner -- the first deficit Karelin had
faced since the 1988 Olympic finals.
"He had a great lock on me, and another three or four inches I
would have let it slip," Gardner said. "But I always wrestle kind
of unorthodox, and our feet got tangled and I got under him. Maybe
it confused him. But I said to myself `He broke' and I got the
point."
Matt Ghaffari of the United States never could get that one
point in 1996, losing in overtime to Karelin 1-0. Gardner, who beat
Ghaffari in the U.S. trials, now had the point, and he could
dictate the action. "His junior college coach told him, `You're in great shape.
When you get into overtime, you shouldn't lose,' " said Reed
Gardner, Rulon's father. "He's always remembered that. He almost
never loses in overtime."
Karelin seemed to tire as the nine-minute mark approached,
taking fewer and fewer scoring chances, realizing what was about to
happen. Finally, with about eight seconds left, the truly
impossible happened. He quit wrestling, dropped his hands and
conceded the first international defeat he had ever sustained.
"But I wasn't going to come out of my stance," Gardner said.
"As soon as I do that, he could come at me and try to throw me and
who knows what the judges would do? But if he did that as a sign of
respect, I appreciate it."
Karelin said less than that after the match, declining to talk
to reporters.
The 29-year-old Gardner, who took to the mat wearing a T-shirt
signed by friends back home in Afton, Wyo. -- including race car
driver Richard Petty -- had an advantage in that he was wrestling
only his second match of the day. It was the 33-year-old Karelin's
third.
"It was 6,900 feet above sea level where I grew up, and I pride
myself on being in shape," Gardner said. "The coaches kept
saying, `He's tired. He's mentally tired,' but I didn't listen to
them. I couldn't. If you let up for one second, he can throw you."
Karelin is so strong that he once carried a refrigerator up
seven flights of stairs rather than ask for help, but, on this
night, supposedly his night of nights, he didn't have the strength
to win.
Gardner did. He grew up as the youngest of nine children on a
dairy farm, weighing 125 pounds by fourth grade, teased by kids
about his shape and called "Fatso." But he also grew strong, able
to lift four milk buckets at a single time or a sick calf on his
shoulder.
He was all-state in football and wrestled on a Star Valley High
School team that won eight consecutive state championships.
"I don't think they would call him names today," his dad
said.
Gardner said his childhood "was kind of tough" because of the
teasing, but, "I used those insults as motivation."
And -- miracle of miracles -- he's got a gold medal to prove it.
Also Wednesday, Armen Nazarian, the 1996 silver medalist from
Bulgaria, tackled his coach and did a backflip after pinning 1999
world champion Kim In-sub of Korea in 2:34 at 127½ pounds (58 kg).
Every gold medalist to follow also did a flip -- even Gardner,
who actually managed to nearly complete it.
Filberto Azcuy of Cuba repeated as a gold medalist, so
dominating Katsuhiko Nagata of Japan that the sport's mercy rule --
a 10-point lead -- was invoked after Azcuy opened a 11-0 lead at 152
pounds (69 kg). Nagata got into the finals despite losing in his
pool to Heath Sims of the United States.
Hamza Yerlikaya of Turkey won his second gold medal, winning by
referee's decision after tying 3-3 with Sandor Istvan Bardosi of
Hungary after nine minutes at 187\ pounds (85 kg).
Earlier Wednesday (Tuesday night EDT), Jim Gruenwald of
Milwaukee dropped his two matches to finish sixth at 127} pounds
(58 kg), losing 11-1 to Zetian Sheng of China and 3-2 to Parviz
Zaidvand of Iran.
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