Greco-Roman Wrestling is not for the meek or the mild.
It's contested by some of the toughest, scariest men
on the planet.
And the toughest, scariest fighters of all can be found competing
in the Super Heavyweight division.
Within that division,
one man reigned supreme for more than a decade.
And this wasn't simply a case of being top dog.
It was historic.
It was utter domination.
You can learn a lot about a man from his nicknames.
Russian Bear.
Alexander the Great.
The Experiment.
Nobody simply hands you those names.
You earn them.
Going into the 2000 Olympic Games final,
Russian Super Heavyweight Aleksandr Karelin, standing at 1 metre 93cm
and weighing 130kg, hadn't lost a bout for 13 years.
His career record read
887 wins
and one loss,
12 consecutive European Championships,
nine consecutive World Championships
and gold medals at the Olympic Games
in Seoul...
..Barcelona...
..and Atlanta, where a chest injury in the final
meant he'd essentially won the gold medal one-handed.
But that was typical of Karelin.
Two gladiators, ladies and gentlemen!
Superhuman feats are standard fare for superhuman athletes.
Nobody had even scored a point against him for seven years.
The biggest, baddest wrestlers in the world
were openly terrified of him.
Most of them had lost the fight before it had even begun.
Karelin had one move in particular that cemented his legend.
Reverse body lifts are practically unheard of
in the Super Heavyweight division.
Few had the strength to execute them.
For Karelin, it became his trademark.
Karelin was more than simply a physical miracle.
He also had the sharpest wrestling mind in the world.
His sports science PhD included a thesis on how to defend the suplex.
He was the strongest, the smartest,
the most aggressive and the most committed wrestler in the world.
He was "a freak of nature".
His opponent in the 2000 Olympic Games final
was not from such impressive stock.
Rulon Gardner, a dairy farmer from Wyoming,
had no pedigree at all at international level.
What he lacked in experience,
he made up for in strength and endurance.
His huge, powerful frame had developed during years of
hard labour on the farm.
And we're not talking about typical farmyard chores.
One his favourite hobbies was wrestling...
with cows.
Real cows.
To stand any chance against the unbreakable Karelin, Gardner
would need to draw on all of that cow-grappling experience.
But Karelin had dealt with stronger, better wrestlers than Gardner.
The bout was expected to be a procession.
Greco-Roman Wrestling matches are contested over two periods
of three minutes each.
If the scores are level, or only one point apart,
the bout goes into a three-minute overtime period.
Early in the first period, it didn't take long for Karelin's first
attempt at launching a reverse lift.
But Gardner was a huge specimen.
Even Alexander the Great couldn't get him off the floor.
The scores were level at the end of the first round.
Karelin still hadn't worked out how to combat Gardner's sheer size.
The second period began in a clinch.
The Russian inadvertently released his lock.
It was a huge mistake.
After a careful check, the referee signalled that Karelin
had broken the clinch first
and, according to a recent change in the rules,
that meant one point was awarded to Gardner.
1-0.
But the Team USA fans in the crowd weren't getting excited yet.
This was Karelin, after all.
The second period ended with Gardner still leading by one point.
Overtime was required.
The onus was on the Russian Bear to take control.
He had three minutes to protect his flawless record.
Karelin's big chance came when Gardner took the par terre position.
The scene was set for a famous reverse lift.
But Gardner wouldn't budge.
For the first time in 13 years,
Karelin looked human.
He had fought earlier in the day and was visibly tired.
But this was Karelin.
Surely he could find one last reserve of strength?
Every attempt to throw Gardner was proving to be futile
and time was running out.
In the last four seconds of the bout,
the unbreakable Karelin seemed to be conceding defeat.
Ladies and gentlemen, the gold medal,
Rulon Gardner of the United States of America.
It was unthinkable.
Gardner could scarcely believe what was happening.
The undisputed champion and greatest of all time
had been dethroned by a farm-boy from Wyoming.
Stunned, Karelin departed the stage.
He left his shoes on the mat,
a symbol of his immediate retirement from the sport.
Gardner enjoyed his moment,
briefly becoming a celebrity in his homeland.
He returned to the Olympic Games in 2004,
winning a bronze under the watchful eye of his old adversary.
But his career would not reach such heights again.
A Snowmobile accident,
an air crash and bankruptcy
followed his wrestling career.
Karelin's status as a Russian hero
was untarnished by the silver medal.
After having the highest possible honours bestowed on him,
he made a move into politics.
What happened that night in Sydney was one of the biggest upsets
in the history of the Olympic Games.
The strangest moments in sport usually arrive without warning.
Karelin versus Gardner came out of nowhere.
If it was a movie, it would be mocked for being unrealistic...
but it happened.
The farmer from Wyoming toppled the most dominant force ever seen
on a wrestling mat,
and nobody can ever take that away from Rulon Gardner.