Alexander Alexandrovich Karelin

Alexander Alexandrowitsch Karelin medal table
Alexander Alexandrovich Karelin
Wrestler
Russia
Greco-Roman Olympic Games
gold	1988 Seoul	Super heavy
gold	1992 Barcelona	Super heavy
gold	1996 Atlanta	Super heavy
silver	2000 Sydney	Super heavy
Greco-Roman World Championships
gold	1989 Martigny	Super heavy
gold	1990 Ostia	Super heavy
gold	1991 Varna	Super heavy
gold	1993 Stockholm	Super heavy
gold	1994 Tampere	Super heavy
gold	1995 Prague	Super heavy
gold	1997 Wroclaw	Super heavy
gold	1998 Gävle	Super heavy
gold	1999 Athens	Super heavy

Alexander Alexandrowitsch Karelin ( Russian Александр Александрович Карелин ; born September 19, 1967 in Novosibirsk ) is a former Soviet or Russian wrestler . With four Olympic medals (3 × gold and 1 × silver), nine world championship titles and twelve European championship titles, regardless of style, he is considered the most successful wrestler of all time. He is a member of the political party United Russia and has been a member of the State Duma of the Russian Federation since 1999 .

General

Alexander Karelin grew up in Novosibirsk in western Siberia . There he started wrestling at the age of eleven. He fought super heavyweight Greco-Roman style and was coached by Viktor Kuznetsov throughout his career .

Karelin was 1.90 m tall during his active time, weighed almost 130 kg and had an outstanding physique. In connection with his large technical repertoire, he established an unprecedented era in wrestling at the end of the eighties , which lasted over 13 years.
Karelin's trademark was the wrong lifter from the stand, which also went down in history as the “Karelin lift”. This wrestling technique is usually used in the "lighter" weight classes, as the opponent is lifted and thrown backwards onto the mat. Karelin was considered the only one in the world of super heavyweight who was able to use this technique successfully. Due to the unusual and extreme experience of being lifted up by the opponent, Karelin's opponents were mostly overwhelmed by this situation and were defeated prematurely.

Career

Successes in the junior sector

In 1985, Alexander Karelin won the Junior World Championship on his first international appearance. In 1986 he added the title of European Junior Champion to this success. In the same year, Karelin caused a sensation for the first time at the age of 19 in the Soviet senior sector, when he remained undefeated for the entire season with one exception. The only defeat he received against his compatriot Igor Rostorozki , who won the senior world title the year before.

In August 1987, Karelin won the Junior World Championship for the second time in Burnaby, Canada . Nevertheless, apart from one World Cup, he was not allowed to start at international senior tournaments, as he again lost to Rostorozki in the finals of the Soviet championships at the beginning of the year. At the next national title fights in spring 1988 Karelin was able to return the favor for this defeat when he defeated the defending champion and meanwhile two-time world and European champion. In the same tournament, Karelin defeated the vice-world champion of 1986 Vladimir Grigoryev and the second big opponent for an international starting place.

Success in the senior sector

Due to his success at the national championships, Karelin was eligible to compete in the upcoming European championships in Kolbotn ( Norway ). In this competition he demonstrated his unique class when he defeated all opponents, including the Swedish world champion from 1986 Tomas Johansson , prematurely with a victory over the shoulder. With this superior performance, Karelin suddenly catapulted herself into the limelight of the international wrestling scene. In the German trade magazine "Der Ringer", No. 6/1988, it was written: "Alexander Karelin should be the absolute Soviet star for the next few years."

At the latest from this point in time, Karelin was considered the exceptional athlete in his weight class and was consequently nominated by the Soviet Federation for the Olympic Games in Seoul. At his first Olympic tournament, he lived up to his role as a favorite and won the gold medal at the age of 21. Nevertheless, to the surprise of many observers, Karelin showed nerves in the final and was only able to win against the 30-year-old Bulgarian Rangel Gerowski by just a few points (5: 3).

In 1989 Alexander Karelin achieved the double for the first time. He first defended his title at the European Championships in Oulu in the spring and then in August in Martigny ( Switzerland ) he secured the senior world title for the first time. He did not give up a single technical point in the entire competition. Above all, his special technique, the wrong lifter from standing, repeatedly confronted the opponents with almost unsolvable problems.
In the next two years Karelin was able to make the double of EM and World Cup victories perfectly. He usually defeated all his opponents prematurely. At the 1991 World Championships in Varna , Karelin met the American Matt Ghaffari for the first time , who was to become his main rival in the next few years, but without being able to break the dominance of the Russian.

After winning his fifth European Championship, Alexander Karelin won his second Olympic gold medal in Barcelona in 1992 . He only had to fight the Finn Juha Ahokas for the full fight time of five minutes, the remaining four fights lasted a total of 5:32 minutes.

In the post-Olympic season in 1993, the winning streak of the man from Siberia continued unabated when he was able to win the European championships for the sixth time in a row and then the world championships again. In winning what is now the fourth World Cup title in Stockholm, Karelin shouldered the Moldovan Sergei Mureiko in the usual impressive manner in the final after 1:40 minutes of fighting time, but after a long time he was only able to close another match against Matt Ghaffari in the preliminary round decide (2-0). Nevertheless, Karelin was still considered the measure of all things in the Greco-Roman wrestling of the super heavy. Logically, he also won the World and European Championships in the next two years.

The 1996 competition year was primarily characterized by a serious shoulder injury that Alexander Karelin sustained at the European Championships in March. In this tournament he had to go through the fighting time against the German champion René Schiekel and allow his opponent to score points again for years after his 4-1 points win. Due to his injury, Karelin was only able to contest the final against Kotok with one arm, which did not prevent him from triumphing again and winning his 9th European title. This competition was followed by an operation on the right shoulder, which meant that training was lost for several months.

Despite this setback, Alexander Karelin was able to celebrate his third Olympic victory at the Games in Atlanta in the summer . In the final, he beat his worst opponent Matt Ghaffari narrowly but certainly 1-0 on points. Nevertheless, the Russian's after-effects of his shoulder surgery were noticeable throughout the entire Olympic tournament. This was particularly noticeable in the lack of explosiveness. In terms of strength, too, Karelin was not the same again, which ultimately resulted in the fact that this time the shoulder victories that had almost become a habit did not materialize. In the final against local hero Ghaffari he even had to go into extra time for the second time in his career.

When Alexander Karelin, now three-time Olympic champion, was absent from an important event for the first time in nine years because he did not take part in the 1997 European Championships in Kouvola , there was speculation in many places about his withdrawal from active competition. But at the world championships in autumn of the same year he appeared in the old freshness and won his seventh world title in the usual sovereign manner. He kept u. a. in a preliminary round fight against the new US hopefuls Rulon Gardner , who should replace Karelin's old rival Ghaffari as number 1 in the US team in the following years.
Up to the next Olympic Games in Sydney, Karelin continued his triumphal procession through the Greco-Roman wrestling scene and won all world and European championship titles that were up until then.

end of an era

As in previous years, the defending champion and now nine-time world champion Alexander Karelin was also the sole contender for victory at the Olympic Games in Sydney . IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch therefore stayed in the competition hall on the day of the finals in order to personally present Karelin his fourth Olympic gold medal. Everything seemed to be going as usual after the Russian faced the American Rulon Gardner after four quick wins in the final . Although the man from the United States was confident and knew how to convince in his previous appearances, even journalists from his homeland gave him little chance of winning. The man from Russia had been too overpowering in his weight class for more than a decade, so that a defeat for many of the spectators was beyond their imagination. But in contrast to the first meeting of the two protagonists at the 1997 World Cup, the final encounter was a balanced battle from the first gong on. Gardner, who had been adjusted to Karelin by his trainer Dan Chandler , prevented time and again that he could make his dreaded grips despite his optical superiority. Furthermore, at 33 years of age, the Russian no longer seemed to be in the physical condition of days gone by when he pushed his opponents up almost at will. In the end, the blatant US outsider even took the lead when he was awarded a single point after Karelin loosened a grip a few seconds too early and was punished for it due to a rule introduced the year before. By exhausting all his possibilities, Rulon Gardner saved this small lead over the rest of the fighting time and thus destroyed the aura of invincibility of his opponent. For Karelin, the defeat in the final was not only the first defeat in 13 years, but the first ever defeat in an international competition.

Alexander Karelin ended his international wrestling career after these games. In September 2003 he was one of the first to be inducted into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame for his services to wrestling .

Others

Even after finishing his active career, Alexander Karelin is considered to be the world's most popular contemporary wrestler. His supremacy lasted longer than a generation of athletes and outlasted the careers of most rivals. In addition to the unique track record, which is still unparalleled across all sports, the external appearance also contributed to the myth of this athlete. The people were especially fascinated by the contrast between the fear-inducing fighter, for whose training u. a. Endurance runs with shouldered tree trunks through knee-deep snow-covered Siberian forests belonged, and on the other hand, to the fine-minded private man who made no secret of his love for literature and classical music.

Due to the way in which he dominated his sport for years, a real myth about Karelin developed over time. The belief in his invincibility is said to have been so deeply rooted in quite a few athletes that they allegedly resigned themselves to the defeat in the run-up to their fight against Karelin. Therefore they would have offered only half-hearted resistance in order to save their strength for the further course of the tournament. A US newspaper once wrote, "Karelin's opponents think less about how to defeat him than about how they can escape him with intact skin."

In 1995, Alexander Karelin joined the Personal Protection Headquarters of the Federal Tax Police Service of Russia, where he was promoted to major general. However, he left this again when he was elected to the Duma in 1999 as a member of the United Russia party . He has been re-elected twice since then. He is a member of the Committee for International Affairs. Before that, he had studied at the Novosibirsk University of Technology and Transport and a degree at the Sports University in Omsk . In August 1996, the then President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin , presented him with the Hero of the Russian Federation award. In November 1998 Alexander Karelin received his doctorate in pedagogical science (candidate nauk) and in May 2002 he completed his habilitation (doctor nauk) at the Academy for Physical Culture in St. Petersburg .

Alexander Karelin was offered several roles as a film villain by Hollywood , all of which he turned down. The same applied to an offer from the American football team Dallas Cowboys , which Karelin wanted to sign due to his extraordinary physique as a player.

Alexander Karelin holds the title of Sports Champion of the Soviet Union (1988). On August 26, 1996, he was named Hero of the Russian Federation by Decree No. 416 of the Russian President.

Competition balance (overview)

year	competition	place	space	Style	Weight class
1985	U20 world championships	Colorado Springs	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1986	U20 European Championships	Malmo	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1987	U20 world championships	Vancouver	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1987	World cup	Albany	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1988	European championships	Kolbotn	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1988	Olympic Summer Games	Seoul	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1988	FILA Grand Prix	Budapest	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1989	European championships	Oulu	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1989	World championships	Martigny	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1990	European championships	Poses	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1990	World championships	Rome	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1990	International tournament	Pittsburgh	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1991	European championships	Aschaffenburg	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1991	World championships	Varna	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1992	European championships	Copenhagen	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1992	Olympic Summer Games	Barcelona	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1993	European championships	Istanbul	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1993	World championships	Stockholm	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1994	European championships	Athens	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1994	World championships	Tampere	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1995	European championships	Besançon	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1995	World championships	Prague	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1996	European championships	Budapest	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1996	Olympic Summer Games	Atlanta	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1997	World championships	Wroclaw	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1998	European championships	Minsk	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1998	World championships	Gävle	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1999	European championships	Sofia	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1999	World championships	Athens	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
2000	European championships	Moscow	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
2000	Olympic Summer Games	Sydney	2	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight

International championships

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, EM = European Championship, GR = Greco-Roman style, SS = super heavyweight, up to 130 kg body weight)

• 1985, 1st place , Junior World Championships in Colorado Springs , GR, SS, ahead of Ilja Walliliew, Bulgaria , György Kekes , Hungary and Carlton Haselring, USA ;
• 1986, 1st place , Junior European Championship in Malmö , GR, SS, ahead of Fabio Valguarnera, Italy and Kekes;
• 1987, 1st place , Junior World Championships in Vancouver , GR, SS, ahead of Andrew Borodew, Canada , Rumen Zyprianow, Bulgaria, Nils Stffensen, Denmark and Fabio Valguarnera;
• 1987, 1st place , World Cup tournament in Albany / USA, GR, SS, ahead of Juan Poulot, Cuba , Jeffrey Blatnick , USA and Kenichi Mikosawa, Japan ;
• 1988, 1st place , EM in Kolbotn / Norway , GR, SS, ahead of Krassimir Radoew, Bulgaria, Tomas Johansson , Sweden , Cinan Kecman, Yugoslavia , Ioan Grigoraș , Romania and Slawomir Zrobek, Poland ;
• 1988, gold medal , OS in Seoul , GR, SS, ahead of Rangel Gerowski , Bulgaria, Johansson, Hassan Alhadad, Egypt , László Klauz , Hungary and Kazuya Deguchi, Japan;
• 1988, 1st place , FILA Grand Prix tournament in Budapest , GR, SS, ahead of László Klauz, Hungary, László Tóth , Hungary, Ioan Grigoraș and Rangel Gerowski ;
• 1989, 1st place , EM in Oulu , GR, SS, ahead of Zrobek, Johansson, György Kekes, Radoew and Juha Ahokas , Finland ;
• 1989, 1st place , World Championship in Martigny / Switzerland , GR, SS, ahead of László Klauz, Johansson, Krassimir Angelow, Bulgaria, Andrew Borodow , Canada and Alain Bifrare, Switzerland;
• 1990, 1st place , EM in Posen , GR, SS, ahead of Gerowski, Ioan Grigoraș, László Klauz, Lubomir David, Czechoslovakia and Alexander Neumüller, Austria ;
• 1990, 1st place , World Championships in Rome , GR, SS, ahead of Johansson, Gerowski, Neumüller, László Klauz and Matt Ghaffari , USA;
• 1991, 1st place , EM in Aschaffenburg , GR, SS, ahead of Johansson, Kekes, Panagiotis Pikilidis, Greece , Raimund Edfelder , FRG and Neumüller;
• 1991, 1st place , World Championships in Varna , GR, SS, ahead of Matt Ghaffari, Gerowski, László Klauz, Jerzy Choromanski, Poland and Jeff Thue, Canada;
• 1992, 1st place , EM in Copenhagen , GR, SS, ahead of Ioan Grigoraș, Kekes, Ahokas, Gerowski and Madis Õunapuu, Estonia ;
• 1992, gold medal , OS in Barcelona , GR, SS, ahead of Johansson, Ioan Grigoraș, László Klauz, Borodew, Lei Tian, People's Republic of China and Ahokas;
• 1993, 1st place , EM in Istanbul , GR, SS, ahead of Peter Kotok , Ukraine , Sergei Mureiko , Moldova , Pikilidis, Radoew and Mario Mikatek, Croatia ;
• 1993, 1st place , World Championships in Stockholm , GR, SS, ahead of Sergei Mureiko, Johansson, Kotok and László Klauz;
• 1994, 1st place , EM in Athens , GR, SS, ahead of Kekes, Kotok, Saban Donat, Turkey , Pikilidis and others. Alexander Enew, Bulgaria;
• 1994, 1st place , World Championships in Tampere , GR, SS, ahead of Héctor Milián , Cuba , Kotok, Johansson, Mile Radakovic, former Yugoslavia and Ghaffari;
• 1995, 1st place , EM in Besançon , GR, SS, ahead of Donat, Sergei Mureiko, Ahokas, Kotok and Edfelder;
• 1995, 1st place , World Championships in Prague , GR, SS, ahead of Sergei Mureiko, Ghaffari, Ahokas, Yuri Evtschenko , Ukraine and Johansson;
• 1996, 1st place , EM in Budapest , GR, SS, ahead of Kotok, Sergei Mureiko, Ahokas, René Schiekel , FRG and Johansson;
• 1996, gold medal , OS in Atlanta , GR, SS, before Matt Ghaffari, Sergei Mureiko, Kotok, Pikilidis and René Schiekel;
• 1997, 1st place , World Championship in Breslau , GR, Ss, ahead of Mihály Deák Bárdos , Hungary, Héctor Milián, Sergei Mureiko, Rulon Gardner , USA and Kotok;
• 1998, 1st place , EM in Minsk , GR, SS, ahead of Georgi Saldadze , Ukraine, Sergei Mureiko, Mihály Deák Bárdos, Dmitzi Debelka , Belarus and Yevchenko;
• 1998, 1st place , World Championships in Gävle , GR, SS, ahead of Ghaffari, Evtschenko, Mirian Giorgadze , Georgia , Georgi Saldadze and Sergei Mureiko;
• 1999, 1st place , EM in Sofia , GR, SS, ahead of Anastasios Sofianidis , Greece, Giuseppe Giunta, Italy , Eddy Bengtsson , Sweden and Debelka;
• 1999, 1st place , World Championships in Athens , ahead of Héctor Milián, Sergei Mureiko, Giunta, Georgi Saldadze and Dremiel Byers , USA;
• 2000, 1st place , EM in Moscow, GR, SS, ahead of Sergei Mureiko, Mihály Deák Bárdos, Yevchenko, David Vala, Czech Republic and Bengtsson;
• 2000, silver medal , OS in Sydney , GR, SS, behind Rulon Gardner and in front of Debelka, Evtschenko, Héctor Milián and Georgi Saldadze

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Various editions of the specialist magazine "Der Ringer" from 1986 to 2000
2. ↑ Kluge, Volker: Summer Olympics - The Chronicle ; Volume III and IV; Sports Publishing Berlin; 2001
3. ↑ sport-komplett.de (online database)
4. ^ Smith and Baumgartner among 10 wrestling heroes named as charter members of FILA International Wrest (English). TheMat.com, December 1, 2003, accessed December 25, 2012 . 
5. ↑ The bear from Siberia. (No longer available online.) Jungle-world.com, September 6, 2000, archived from the original on May 13, 2016 ; Retrieved December 25, 2012 . 
6. ↑ The Nine Lives of Rulon Gardner. Süddeutsche.de, May 17, 2010, accessed December 25, 2012 . 
7. ↑ ^{a b} curriculum vitae v. Alexander Karelin. warheroes.ru, accessed December 25, 2012 . 
8. ↑ Lovely King Kong. Berliner Zeitung, July 25, 1996, accessed December 25, 2012 . 
9. ↑ Boris Yegorov: Heroic: Who are the modern heroes of Russia? August 28, 2019, accessed on May 28, 2020 (German). 
10. ↑ Карелин Александр Александрович. Retrieved May 28, 2020 . 

Web links

Commons : Alexander Karelin  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Profile of Alexander Karelin on fila-official.com
• Profile of Alexander Karelin at the Institute for Applied Training Science
• Alexander Karelin in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )