Four years older than Sanderson and a veteran of international freestyle competition since 1998 — when Sanderson was in his first year of college at Iowa State — Moon had a definite experience edge. At that, he was an unexpected foe in the final after upsetting Russian Sazhid Sazhidov in the semifinals with a 10-2 trouncing.

Sazhidov, the 2003 world champion when he defeated Sanderson in New York City, had sailed through the tournament until he ran into Moon, winning a preliminary match against Senegal's Matar Sene by a 17-0 verdict after Sazhidov declined accepting the right to take the win when he went ahead 10-0.

The good news for Sanderson, after he defeated previous nemesis Yoel Romero of Cuba in the semifinals, was that he didn't have to face Sazhidov.

The bad news was that he had to face the man who beat Sazhidov 10-2.

Romero, the middleweight silver medalist in Sydney, had defeated Sanderson by a single point in each of their two previous meetings. In their semifinal meeting Saturday morning, Romero went up 1-0 at the 1:16 mark of the first period. Sanderson evened the score just before intermission at 2:56 and then, at 3:45 went up 2-1. He got the third point, and the win, at 4:21.

In the bronze medal match between Romero and Sazhidov — a match most people felt would be for the gold — Sazhidov prevailed, 5-3.

"This is the toughest tournament in the world," exulted Sanderson after his victory. "It feels good. It was hard. I didn't wrestle perfect, but a win's a win, and I'll take this one."

At Wasatch High School in Heber City, Sanderson lost just three times, once as a sophomore and twice as a junior, while winning four straight Utah high school championships. At Iowa State, he won four consecutive NCAA championships while winning an unprecedented 159 straight matches.

The Utah native, who was born in Salt Lake City, becomes only the third Utah-born athlete to win an Olympic gold medal. The others are Alma Richards, who won the high jump at the Stockholm Olympics in 1912, and Natalie Williams, who was on the winning U.S. women's basketball team in 2000 at the Sydney Olympics.

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E-mail: lbenson@desnews.com