http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Betsy/Colin%20McEnroe%20Show%2002-27-2013.mp3
They called Alexandr Karelin The Experiment, a reference to his supposedly unprecedented training methods, which the Russian wrestler himself claimed were so grueling and relentless that nobody else could imagine them: "I train every day of my life as they have never trained a day in theirs."
In international Graeco Roman wrestling competition, Karelin went 13 years without a loss and, this is more astonishing, six years without giving up a point.
This was exactly where things stood in the 2000 Olympics when Karelin faced a roly-poly Wyoming farm boy namedRulon Gardner and lost. Gardner went on to have a bizarre and colorful life, losing a toe to frostbite after a snowmobile disaster, gaining hundreds of pounds, going on "The Biggest Loser," declaring bankruptcy.
But that one tussle in Sydney is a great example of why the Olympics should not drop wrestling.
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