AP: Miracle on the mat: Gardner stuns Karelin

SYDNEY, Australia — Rulon Gardner did the unthinkable. He beat the unbeatable. He proved that Alexander Karelin isn't perfect — and he won a gold medal that virtually nobody in the world thought he could win.

Gardner, never an NCAA champion, never a world medalist, ended Karelin's string of three Olympic gold medals and 13-year unbeaten streak by winning the Olympic super heavyweight wrestling gold medal 1-0 Wednesday.

Miracle on ice? This was the miracle on the mat.

"When did I think I could beat him? About 10 minutes ago," Gardner said. "I kept saying, 'I think I can. I think I can.' But it wasn't until it was over that I knew I could."

Karelin is universally considered the greatest Greco-Roman wrestler of all time, a man who had never lost in international competition, who had not been scored upon in 10 years.

And Gardner beat him, stunning a crowd that included IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, who had come to present Karelin with his fourth gold medal — the medal he wouldn't get.

"What does this mean? He just beat the best wrestler in the history of wrestling — a wrestler who had never been beaten," U.S. national Greco-Roman coach Steve Fraser said.

The upset was so stunning that virtually no one in the crowd in the Sydney Exhibition Hall, outside of Gardner's immediate family, could believe it. Nor could Karelin, who, Gardner said, "mumbled a few words at me in Russian toward the end. I don't know what he said, but I think it was, 'I give up.' "

Karelin said less than that after the match, declining to talk to reporters.

The Russian's gold medal was seen as a lock. As big a lock as the Soviet Union was to beat a bunch of U.S. collegians in hockey in 1980.

This upset certainly was comparable — Gardner, whose best finish ever in world competition was a fifth place, somehow beating a man so feared that two prior Olympic finalists essentially quit on the mat rather than keep absorbing a pounding.

"He's so big and nasty, it's like a horse pushing you," Gardner said. "I'm not as strong as him — not even close. I knew if I let him push me around, get even two or three points on me, it was over."

Gardner, who walked on to the Nebraska football team but quit to wrestle full time, said beforehand that he had a strategy to counter Karelin's dreaded lifts and relentless pressure. That he even expected to "have some fun with Karelin."