AddInformation:
When and where did you begin this sport?
Began aged six in the United States of America.
Why this sport?
For one week every year, Star Valley would have a wrestling camp, which always concluded with a tournament on the weekend. He participated in this until he started junior high school at 12 years of age. He began a regular wrestling season while in junior high and continued until he graduated from the University of Nebraska.
Awards and honours
He was the USA flag bearer at the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. (rulongardner.com 14/01/02)
In 2001 he was named USA Wrestling Man of the Year and won the James E Sullivan Award for Amateur Athlete of the Year. He also won the ESPY as the top male Olympic Athlete and the Jesse Owens Award. (rulongardner.com 14/01/02, olympic-usa.org 17/03/03)
Ambitions
To compete at the Athens Olympic Games. He is especially energised by the idea that the legendary Alexander Karelin may come out of retirement to compete in Greece. "Every day of my life has been an uphill battle," he said. "What kept me alive was my desire and
determination. And the thing that almost killed me was my desire and determination. I still have it." (AP Sports, washspkrs.com 11/02/04)
After his career he plans to teach and coach wrestling. (USOC 11/02/04)
Other Information
STRANDED WHILE SNOWMOBILING
Seventeen months after winning a gold medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, he almost froze to death after becoming stranded while snowmobiling in the steep terrain of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. He was with three friends when his machine was swamped by soft snow that runs as deep as six to eight feet in the rugged mountain range 15 miles southeast of Afton. A distant cousin and local sheriff, Lee Gardner, said that Rulon was an expert snowmobiler but had became separated from his friends when his machine slipped into a canyon and he couldn't get it out.
He was forced to spend a night at about 2500m above sea level without shelter and no cloud cover in temperatures around -25 degrees Celcius. His friends apparently left the forest for help when they grew low on fuel, Sheriff Gardner said. They reported their friend missing about 7-40pm. A private aircraft spotted Gardner at 7-15am the following morning and guided an Idaho Air Flight helicopter to his location and he was rescued by helicopter 45 minutes later. The sheriff said that Gardner was able to speak only a little and struggled to walk on his severely frostbitten feet before being helped into a wheelchair. (AP Sports, washspkrs.com 11/02/04)
Doctors believed they would have to amputate his frostbitten feet and told Gardner he would probably not walk again, a diagnosis the big man refused to accept. He eventually had the middle toe on his right foot removed which was followed by months of physical therapy and rehabilitation. (AP Sports, washspkrs.com 11/02/04)
OLYMPIC GOLD
He broke three-time Olympic champion Alexander Karelin's domination of the 130kg weight division when he forced the Russian to release his clinch at the start of the second period. Gardner held on to the 1-0 lead through overtime to win the gold medal. A scoreless first period led to a coin toss by the referee, which Gardner lost. This meant Karelin got to clinch Gardner's chest and had a minute to score a point. Gardner however was able to force Karelin to release his hold, which gave him the decisive point and the first the Russian had conceded in ten years of international competition. Neither wrestler was able to turn a number of passivity calls and even Karelin's patented reverse body lock proved luckless. It was the first time Karelin had been beaten in Olympic competition. (INFO 2000, AP, washspkrs.com 11/02/04)
GROWING UP
Rulon is the youngest of nine children born to Reed and Virginia Gardner. He was taught to work while very young, and being raised on a dairy farm where the family grew their own crops and milked cows twice a day, there was never a shortage of work to be done. When tall enough to see over the tall barley, he was taken, along with his siblings, to the field to help move the sprinkler pipe, or as his dad always said, "it is time to move the water". On many occasions, the children were lost in the grain, but only for short periods of time before their father found them. (ESPN 09/12/01)