Nine minutes: How the Sydney Olympics changed wrestler Rulon Gardner's life

"He spent nine minutes on the mat with that ugly man from Russia," Reed Gardner likes to say with a laugh. "I spent 50 to 60 years on the farm, and I don't have nothin."'

Over and over, Gardner speaks about success, overcoming odds, persistence, hard work, etc., and, of course, those nine minutes. He tells of how the country boy beat the unbeatable, larger-than-life Alexander Karelin, the nine-time world champ and three-time Olympic champ, in the Greco-Roman heavyweight wrestling finals at the 2000 Olympics' Sydney Summer Games.

To fully appreciate that feat, you should know that Gardner didn't even qualify for an Olympic team until 2000, when he was 29 years old. Karelin, meanwhile, hadn't even been scored upon in 10 years. Opponents weren't as concerned about losing as much as escaping with their health. Karelin was famous for a reverse body lift in which he slammed his opponent on his head. The last time Gardner had faced Karelin he had lost 5-0, which is the equivalent of a 56-0 blowout in football. To this day, Gardner sees a chiropractor several times a month to treat a neck injury from one of his early bouts with the Russian (he believes he broke two vertebrae). As he sits at the computer, he rotates his head side to side periodically to make it pop and relieve stiffness.

The day of the match in Sydney, a friend called Gardner from the United States and pleaded with him not to compete against Karelin because it wasn't worth it. Bob Costas, the TV commentator, said the odds of Gardner winning were 2,000 to one.

Russian and Olympic dignitaries attended the match, planning to give Karelin his historic fourth gold medal. But, of course, Gardner prevailed 1-0, with Karelin doing the unthinkable in the final seconds, dropping his hands and mumbling a surrender.

Gardner has been living off that one victory ever since, becoming a multimillionaire in the process. He never envisioned that Olympic victory would pay off like this through all those years of training and meager stipends.

"This wasn't a dream," he says. "This was an unexpected happenstance."

No other gold medalist wrestler has ever been able to cash in like Gardner, not even the legendary Dan Gable or Utah's own Cael Sanderson, who were actually better, more accomplished wrestlers. But there has been no other win like Gardner's. It was Rocky Balboa beating Russian Ivan Drago; the U.S. hockey team beating the Russians. All of them dredged up the old Cold War rivalry.

Gardner has rushed to make the most of the opportunities those nine minutes gave him. Not only has he given hundreds of speeches, he has made significant investments in real estate. He has invested in the horse trade, buying a blue-blooded cutting horse to train and breed.