Russian may be in training to face Gardner in Athens

EDINBORO, Pa. -- Just when Rulon Gardner thought it was no longer necessary to keep relying on miracles, he heard a rumor, then another, then one more from 15 time zones away in Russia.

Alexander Karelin is training for the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Alexander Karelin doesn't want to go out a loser.

Alexander Karelin wants to wrestle him.

Gardner responded with a shrug, a halfhearted smile and the same thought that crossed his mind when he was about to wrestle the supposedly unbeatable Karelin in the 2000 Olympics. The same thought he had 17 months later while lying half-frozen alongside a tree on a minus-25 degree night in an isolated Wyoming valley, delirious with cold and seemingly about to die.

Nothing's been easy so far in his life, so why should this be?

"You hate to think about it because in life, you always want to be successful, you always want to win," Gardner said. "If he were to be there, I think it would be a bigger battle to win a gold medal than it would be against any other wrestler. But you've got to wrestle whoever shows up."

Even if it is the great Karelin, the best Greco-Roman wrestler the world has ever known, the refrigerator-sized man who is such a perfect physical specimen that he is known as The Experiment. A man who speaks six languages but has yet to say definitively in any of them that he absolutely, positively will not come out of retirement again to try for the fourth Olympic gold medal he was expected to win in Sydney.

For now, though, the Wyoming farm boy who had never won a major championship until defeating Karelin in one of the greatest Olympic upsets in any sport has too much on his mind to worry about a possible rematch with Karelin 13 months from now.

Gardner is still trying to get back on his feet, literally, after requiring months of rehabilitation, therapy and persistence to overcome the damage caused by the frostbite and hypothermia that nearly killed him following his snowmobiling accident in February 2002.

He lost a toe and nearly lost several others on feet that even now are a bruise-like purplish in color. The injury forced him to relearn how to wrestle, to figure out a style that would work without the balance and maneuverability he once had -- and, too, without his natural size. Since Sydney, his weight class has been lowered from 286 to 264 pounds, meaning he had to maintain his strength and conditioning while somehow losing 22 pounds.

So far, he is well ahead of the learning curve, defeating 2002 world champion Dremiel Byers in a closely contested series of matches in the world team trials last month in Indianapolis. By winning, Gardner will try in October to regain the world championship he won in 2001, only a few months before his near-death experience.

"Part of me says I don't deserve to be No. 1 because of the way I represented the sport, went out and made some mistakes snowmobiling," Gardner said. "I take personal responsibility for what I did."

But while the accident nearly ended his career, it didn't entirely alter it in a negative way. Because of the adjustments he was required to make, he feels more comfortable countering certain moves or escaping from awkward predicaments than he did when he had 10 toes and normal balance.

"Adversity creates opportunity," Gardner said.

Such strategy will be useful in the 2004 U.S. Olympic trials, which he is certainly not guaranteed of winning. Two others in his class are close to his skill level: Byers, last year's world champion, and Corey Farkas, who beat him in the national championships in May.

"Nobody will think about Athens until the day after the trials," Gardner said. "If you're thinking about Athens today, you'll be sitting on the bench next year watching the procession go by, and I can't do that."

Especially if there is any chance Karelin might also be in the parade.

In May, Karelin told the newspaper Izvestia he isn't planning a comeback, saying, "I don't think I have the right to wrestle for points, disappointing the expectations of the fans. I'm sure that my younger (colleagues) will make us glad in the future with victories (at) heavyweight."

However, Karelin supposedly retired after beating American Matt Ghaffari in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, only to return in 2000. Gardner also points out that no Russian has won a world-level heavyweight title since Karelin in the 1999 world championships.

That's why, Gardner said, "I have to assume he's back in training."

"There is nobody in the world that can match him," Gardner said. "You have guys that are strong, but you're talking about an individual who does things to heavyweights that nobody's ever done before. I'm a good wrestler, a big wrestler and an in-shape wrestler, but I don't have half the ability he does."

To beat Karelin in 2000, Gardner wrestled what he called a perfect match. Perfection comes rarely in an athletic career, and Gardner said there's no guarantee he would be perfect again in 2004.

He is not scared of Karelin, nor intimidated by him, but he also knows how difficult it was to beat him once, and he isn't looking forward to having to try to do it twice.

"If you do it once, you know -- " he said, pausing. "Twice, it's a miracle. You don't want to have to keep going back and relying on miracles."

Not even the man who scripted the Miracle on the Mat?

"The last thing I want to do is create a motivational factor for somebody like him to come back," Gardner said. "But even with half the ability he has, he could win 99 percent of the time, that's how good he was and how dominant he was."

Still, with all that Gardner has been through since Sydney, he thinks he would be a better wrestler in 2004 than he was in 2000. He also has an age advantage: He will turn 33 during the 2004 Games; Karelin will be 36 a month later.

Gardner remembers the months just before the 1996 Olympics, when two-time Olympic freestyle heavyweight champion Bruce Baumgartner brought him in as a training partner. Gardner had size and determination but was no match for Baumgartner.

"He beat the tar out of me," Gardner said.

Earlier this month, the two were reunited on the mat at a youth wrestling camp at Edinboro University, where Baumgartner is the athletic director. When Gardner got on top of Baumgartner to demonstrate a hold, this time it was Baumgartner who couldn't get up.

"People say to me, 'What are you going to do? You're going to tarnish your record,' " Gardner said. "I said it's what I love to do. It's the gift I've been given. I'm so lucky to be able to wrestle."

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