August 11, 2004 7:08 pm
U.S. wrestlers bring compelling plots
The impact of Rulon Gardner's stun-the-world Olympic gold medal in 2000 can be measured four years later by the dust settling on a jar in his refrigerator.
Gardner has been so busy since earning his Olympic wrestling return that he hasn't had time to discard one of his sources of motivation - a toe lost to frostbite after a snowmobile accident in 2002.
"I wanted to bury it," Gardner said, "but I'm not going to have time before the games."
Wrestling plot lines for the Athens Games include the improbable life story of Gardner, the international rise of quiet Iowa college star Cael Sanderson and four American women who hope to make history.
Gardner - the rugged Wyoming farm kid - crafted what has been called the greatest upset in Olympic history when he stopped Alexander Karelin of Russia, 1-0, in Greco-Roman.
Karelin had won three gold medals, was 63-0 in international competition and had not been scored on in a decade before meeting Gardner in Sydney.
Since skyrocketing from obscurity, Gardner's post-gold medal life has included everything from a reported $1.5 million offer to compete in the WWE to the snowmobile accident that left him in 25-below zero temperatures overnight in the Wyoming wilderness.
Gardner has hurt his 260-pound body so many times since March 30 - including being flipped from his Harley-Davidson in a collision with a car and severely dislocating his right wrist playing pickup basketball - that a USA Wrestling press release at the Olympic trials listed the "Rulon Gardner Chronology of Injuries".
Three days after the trials, Gardner was wake-boarding on a Utah lake.
"I've walked with people before and they step away so they don't get hurt," Gardner said. "I'm like, 'Thanks, a lot.' "
The move to international wrestling was more anticipated for Sanderson, the first undefeated, four-time NCAA champion when he polished off a 159-0 career at Iowa State in 2002.
Sanderson, the third of four wrestling brothers from Utah, appeared on a Wheaties box, inked a soup can endorsement deal with a grocery store chain - and even had his own bobblehead doll.
So when Sanderson sealed his Olympic berth in freestyle wrestling at 185 pounds in Indianapolis in May, the relief was obvious.
"When I've been thinking about it for 20 years, it's just a little crazy," he said.
In women's freestyle wrestling, the United States hopes to outduel rival Japan as females compete for Olympic medals in the sport for the first time at four weights.
Patricia Miranda, of Moteca, Calif., the daughter of a Brazilian doctor and political activist who emigrated from the country, decided to delay her admission to law school at Yale to chase an Olympic dream at 105.5 pounds.
Miranda will be joined by Tela O'Donnell of Homer, Alaska (121 pounds), Sara McMann of Takoma Park, Md. (138.5) and Toccara Montgomery of Cleveland (158.5).
All but O'Donnell has won a World-level silver medal.
"If we do well, it definitely will boost women's wrestling in the United States," said O'Donnell, "which would be cool, since it's such a great sport."
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