Rulon Gardner

Rulon Gardner ( born August 16, 1971 in Afton, Wyoming ) is a former American professional wrestler and Olympic champion in 2000 in the heavyweight division in Greco- Roman style.

Career

Rulon Gardner grew up as the youngest of nine children, the son of a farmer in Afton. At the age of six he began, animated by his older brother Reynold, in a support program of the Stan Valley High School in Afton, which he later also visited, with the rings. After high school he attended the University of Nebraska and graduated in Physical Education from.

In high school, he ran next to the rings also athletics and American football, but then focused entirely on the rings. He became a master of the State of Wyoming in the heavyweight division in Greco-Roman in 1989. Style and thus succeeded his brother Reynold, who won this title a year earlier. Rulon developed continuously with the coach Anatoly Petrosyan and in 1994 was sent by the U.S. Wrestling Federation to the Pan American Championships in Mexico City, where he won the title in the heavyweight division before the Cubans Juan M. Cruz Paquis. That was his first start in an international championship.

1995 Rulon was American heavyweight champion in Greco-Roman for the first time. Style and repeated this title in 1997 and 2001. Prior to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where he was to write Ringer history, Rulon took part in a World Cup only in 1997. In Breslau he finished doing a good 5th place. In the pool finals he lost to, among other things the Russian Alexander Karelin with 0:5 points. In 1998, the former world-class wrestler Steve Fraser at the " Sunkist Kids", a wrestler club in Phoenix, was changed to the Rulon, his training, and brought him moving forward.

After another victory at the Pan American Championships in 1998 in Winnipeg, Rulon started in the Olympic Games in Sydney. As a big favorite in the heavyweight class was Alexander Karelin, the unbeaten over ten years and three -time Olympic champion and nine -time world champion was. Rulon Gardner was in great shape and fought his sovereign to the finals by. There he met with expectations to Alexander Karelin. Rulon had been excellently set by the U.S. National coach Dan Chandler on Karelin, grabbed it to constantly and gave this as a chance to put its dreaded handles. On the contrary, Karelin was effective against Rulon Gardner extremely slow and cumbersome and got in the extension of a warning for passivity, the points victory of Rulon Gardner led to sensational 1-0, so that the Olympic champion.

The fact that this victory was no fluke, Rulon proved a year later at the 2001 World Championships in Patras / Greece. He defeated there two strong wrestlers from the successor states of the Soviet Union, an Israeli, also built in the Soviet Union Ringer and Hungary Mihaly Deak Bardos and the Bulgarians Sergei Mureiko. For this reason is actually the world champion title seen sporting worth more than the Olympic champion from 2000, where he had, with the exception of Karelin much weaker opponents.

In 2002, Rulon Gardner suffered a serious accident when he broke with a snowmobile on a lake in Wyoming and suffered such severe frostbite that he had to be amputated a toe on his right foot. Nevertheless, he took 2003 wrestling practice again and started at the Pan American Champion Chips in Santo Domingo, where he was runner-up with a training deficit and at the 2003 World Cup in Créteil / France, where he but after two wins in the Russian newcomer 21 -year-old Khassan Barojew failed and so was only on the 10th Place.

In 2004, Rulon qualified again for the Olympic Games in Athens. He won there four fights, but failed in the semifinals of the Kazakhs Georgi Tsurumia 3-1 points, but fought his way through a victory over the Iranian Sajad Barzi the bronze medal.

After Rulon Gardner retired from active wrestling sport. He took a job as a " Motivational Speaker " and holds it in front of young people, businessmen and Others groups talks about that you should always believe in yourself and never should give up. These lectures he can still accumulate with another example from his personal fate since the last weekend of February 2007, because this weekend he crashed along with two friends with a small plane into Lake Powell, one of the largest lakes in the U.S. and reached the shore strongly supercooled after an hour swimming in only seven degrees cold water, but alive.

Competitive balance (Overview)

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, GR = Greek and Roman. Style, F = Freestyle, S = Heavy weight up to 130 kg to 2001, from 2002 up to 120 kg body weight)

Swell

• Journal " The Ringer " from the years 1994-2004,
• Website International Wrestling Database of the University of Leipzig ( www.iat.uni -leipzig.de )
• Newspaper article " The Nine Lives of Rulon Gardner ," Süddeutsche Zeitung of 28 February 2007, page 31