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Near dead, US grappler craves gold again
US Olympic wrestler Rulon Gardner keeps his gold medal at his home in Colorado and his amputated toe in a jar in his refrigerator. The medal is from the Sydney Games four years ago when Gardner pulled off what has been dubbed the "Miracle on the Mat" when he defeated the nearly invincible Alexander Karelin. The toe is a reminder of a night in the freezing wilderness two years ago that nearly took his life. Gardner said what has not killed him has made him stronger. "It was a life-changing experience from being the best in the world to almost dying," the soft-spoken giant from rural Wyoming told reporters on Monday. "The Olympics didn't matter that night because it was truly life or death." After Gardner's snowmobile ran out of control in February 2002, he was left stranded in temperatures of minus 30 degrees in a Wyoming valley for 18 hours before friends and family helped rescue him. Gardner was not wearing a coat and when he was rushed to a hospital, doctors said his chances for survival looked bleak because his body temperature had fallen to grave condition. Gardner somehow survived, recovering from severe injuries to both of his feet. But he had the middle toe on his right foot amputated. In a sport that requires quick movement and balance, the injury could have proven career ending. But Gardner fought back, steeled by the night in the wilderness and fuelled by a desire to come to Greece to compete at the birthplace of his Greco-Roman wrestling discipline. "What the toe represented is the years of struggle, the pain I went through, the recovery of healing up from a mistake that I made," Gardner said. "The frostbite was something I will never look back on and wish didn't happen because I learned so much that night about me and about the good Lord and about being here on this beautiful Earth," he said. Long shot Gardner is a man who has defied the odds. In Sydney, he squared off against Karelin, who was undefeated in capturing three-straight Olympic super-heavyweight golds in Greco-Roman wrestling. Gardner's victory was one of the greatest upsets at Sydney and helped make him one of the stars of the Games. Gardner had a motorcycle accident earlier this year and also dislocated his wrist in a basketball game and he has not fully recovered from that injury. For him, a triumph in Athens may be even sweeter than the taste of gold in Sydney because he is competing in one of the ancient Olympic sports in the country of its birth. "I think that would be the ultimate in a wrestler's background. You are at a place where wrestling has been around for over 2000 years," he said. Gardner says he will step away from the sport after the Athens Games: "This will be my last competition. After Athens, I'm going to leave my shoes on the mat, and thank God for this great sport." And as for the toe that has been preserved in formaldehyde in a jar - Gardner said he will lay that to rest after the Games. He plans to bury his severed digit alongside a favourite dog of his that died about four years ago. |
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