Rulon Gardner

Rulon Gardner medal table
Rulon Gardner (2002 / middle)
Wrestler
United States
Greco-Roman Olympic Games
gold	2000 Sydney	Super heavy
bronze	2004 Athens	Super heavy
Greco-Roman World Championships
gold	2001 Patras	Super heavy

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

Career

Rulon Gardner grew up as the youngest of nine children as the son of a farmer in Afton. Animated by his older brother Reynold, he began wrestling at the age of six in a support program at Stan Valley High School in Afton, which he later attended. After high school , he attended the University of Nebraska and graduated as a PE teacher.

In high school, in addition to wrestling, he also did athletics and American football , but then concentrated entirely on wrestling. In 1989 he became the state heavyweight champion of Wyoming in Greco-Roman. Stil, succeeding his brother Reynold, who had won this title a year earlier. Rulon continued to develop with the coach Anatoly Petrosyan and was sent by the US Wrestling Association to the Pan American Championships in Mexico City in 1994 , where he won the heavyweight title in front of the Cuban Juan M. Cruz Paquis. That was his first start in an international championship.

In 1995, Rulon was the first American heavyweight champion in Greco-Roman. Style and repeated this title win in 1997 and 2001. Before the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000 , in which he should write wrestling history, Rulon only took part in a world championship in 1997. In Breslau he took a good 5th place. In the pool final he was defeated, among others, by Russian Alexander Karelin with 0: 5 points. In 1998, the former world class wrestler Steve Fraser took over his training with the "Sunkist Kids", a wrestling club in Phoenix , to which Rulon had switched, and helped him advance.

After another victory at the Pan American Championships in 1998 in Winnipeg , Rulon started at the Olympic Games in Sydney . A high favorite in the heavyweight division was Alexander Karelin, who was unbeaten for over ten years and was a three-time Olympic champion and nine-time world champion. Rulon Gardner was in excellent shape and fought his way through to the final. As expected, he met Alexander Karelin there. Rulon had been adjusted to Karelin by the US national coach Dan Chandler , attacked him non-stop and gave him no chance to do his dreaded grips. On the contrary, Karelin seemed extremely slow and sedate against Rulon Gardner and received a warning in extra time for passivity, which led to the sensational 1-0 point victory of Rulon Gardner, who thus became Olympic champion.

Rulon proved that this victory was no coincidence a year later at the 2001 World Cup in Patras / Greece . There he defeated two strong wrestlers from the successor states of the Soviet Union , an Israeli wrestler, also from the Soviet Union, and the Hungarians Mihály Deák Bárdos and the Bulgarians Sergej Mureiko . For this reason, this world championship title is actually worth more from a sporting point of view than the Olympic victory in 2000, where, with the exception of Karelin, he had much easier opponents.

In 2002, Rulon Gardner suffered a serious accident when he broke into a snowmobile on a lake in Wyoming and suffered severe frostbite that resulted in the amputation of a toe on his right foot. Nevertheless, he took up wrestling training again in 2003 and started at the Pan American Championships in Santo Domingo , where he was runner-up with a lack of training, and at the 2003 World Championships in Créteil / France , where, however, after two wins against the 21-year-old Russian newcomer Chassan Barojew failed and so only came in 10th place.

In 2004 Rulon qualified again for the Olympic Games in Athens . He won four fights there, but failed in the semifinals against the Kazakh Georgi Tsurumia with 3-1 points, but won the bronze medal by beating the Iranian Sajad Barzi.

After that, Rulon Gardner resigned from active wrestling. He took up an activity as a “motivational speaker” and lectured in front of young people, business people and the like. a. Groups of people lectures on the fact that you should always believe in yourself and never give up. Since the last weekend in February 2007 he has been able to enrich these lectures with another example from his personal fate, because on that weekend he and two friends crashed into Lake Powell , one of the largest lakes in the USA , with two friends after swimming for an hour in the water, which is only seven degrees cold, the bank was very hypothermic, but alive.

Competition balance (overview)

year	competition	place	space	Style	Weight class
1994	Pan American Championships	Mexico city	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1996	World cup	Colorado Springs	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1997	Pan American Games	San Juan	2	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1997	World championships	Wroclaw	5	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1998	FILA tournament	Colorado Springs	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1998	FILA tournament	Faenza	3	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
1998	Pan American Championships	Winnipeg	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
2000	Pan American Championships	Cali	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
2000	Olympic Summer Games	Sydney	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
2001	World championships	Patras	1	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
2003	Pan American Games	Santo Domingo	2	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
2003	World championships	Créteil	10	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight
2004	Olympic Summer Games	Athens	3	Greco-Roman	Super heavyweight

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, GR = Greco-Roman style, F = freestyle, S = heavyweight, until 2001 up to 130 kg, from 2002 up to 120 kg body weight)

• 1994, 1st place , Pan American Championships in Mexico City , F, S, in front of Juan M. Cruz Paquis, Cuba a . Alfredo Far, Panama ;
• 1996, 1st place , World Cup in Colorado Springs , GR, S, ahead of Héctor Milián , Cuba a. Alexej Kolesnikow, Russia ;
• 1997, 2nd place , Pan American Championships in San Juan , GR, S, behind Hector Milian u. before Rafael Barrero Martinez, Venezuela ;
• 1997, 5th place , World Championships in Breslau , GR, S, behind Alexander Karelin , Russia, Mihály Deák Bárdos , Hungary, Hector Milian u. Sergej Mureiko , Bulgaria a . in front of Petro Kotok , Ukraine ;
• 1998, 1st place , Pan American Championships in Winnipeg , GR, S, ahead of Hector Milian u. Gogi Johl, Canada ;
• 1998, 1st place, FILA tournament in Colorado Springs, GR, S, before Andrzej Wroński , Poland a . Corej Farkas, USA ;
• 1998, 3rd place , FILA tournament in Faenza / Italy , GR, S, behind Hector Milian u. Alexander Neumüller, Austria a . together with Dirk Zimmermann, FRG and before Eddy Bengtsson , Sweden ;
• 2000, 1st place , Pan American Championships in Cali / Colombia , GR, S, ahead of Hector Milian u. Rafael Barrero Martinez;
• 2000, gold medal , OS in Sydney , GR, S, with victories over Omrane Ayari, Tunisia , Haykaz Galstjan, Armenia , Giuseppe Giunta, Italy, Yuri Evchenko , Israel and Alexander Karelin, Russia;
• 2001, 1st place , World Championship in Patras / Greece , GR, S, with victories over Juri Evchenko, Georgi Saldaze , Ukraine, Juri Patrekejew, Russia, Sergej Mureiko, Bulgaria and Mihaly Deak Bardos, Hungary;
• 2003, 2nd place , Pan American Games in Santo Domingo , GR, S, behind Mijaim Lopez Nunez, Cuba and in front of Rafael Barrero Martinez;
• 2003, 10th place , World Championships in Créteil / France , GR, S, with victories over Eddy Bengtsson a. Yuri Evchenko and a loss to Khassan Baroev , Russia;
• 2004, bronze medal , OS in Athens , GR, S, with victories over Mindaugas Mizgaitis, Lithuania , Sergej Mureiko, Marek Makulski, Poland a. Sajad Barzi, Iran a. a loss to Georgi Tsurumia , Kazakhstan

swell

• Trade magazine "Der Ringer" from 1994 to 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 February 28, 2007, page 31

Web links

• Official website
• Portrait of Rulon Gardner in English ( Memento of May 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive )