Wrestling: Gardner Gets to Grips With Celebrity

It takes a strong man to carry heavyweight greco-roman wrestling from the small-town gym halls of Wyoming to the television studios of America. Rulon Gardner is a very strong man. He is also the dairy farmer's son who beat the greatest wrestler of all time, Russia's Aleksander Karelin, to win gold at the Sydney Olympics - a stunning result that propelled him on to the Oprah Winfrey show and the pages of Vanity Fair magazine.

Since then his celebrity has survived, although for reasons that have nothing to do with his wrestling - a divorce, a motorcycle crash, money problems and a nasty case of frostbite that left one of his toes in the fridge back home while its owner travelled to Greece to defend his Olympic title.

Greco-roman, meanwhile, has gone back to where it came from; far from the American consciousness, which prefers sporting events that are short, violent and decisive. Olympic heavyweight wrestling is none of these things. It is two heavy-browed, stolid men pushing, grabbing, bending and chasing each other around a circular mat. It is sumo on the Atkins diet, with a scoring system beyond the comprehension of Oprah fans, Vanity Fair subscribers and the gaggle of American journalists who have been assigned to follow Gardener's progress in Athens.

This would explain why his post-bout press conferences consist almost entirely of him explaining the intricacies of wrestling to the uninitiated. "The tie-breaker was one-one caution and two to one passivities, so he had one more passivity than I did. It was about who came out of the clinch. It was about who was trying to stay in the clinch and what he kept doing was popping my shoulder out and I was trying to get back into position, and he was trying to look at the referee and say 'hey, America is unlocking, it's a point for me', and I was, like, 'no, I'm going to try to show the difference, it was just a transition'," he said after defeating his second opponent of the day, Serguey Moreyko of Bulgaria, by a winning score of 1-1.

Fortunately, there was no misunderstanding Gardner's two other preliminary bouts, both of which he won easily. Those wins took him into today's semi-finals.

After winning gold in 2000, Gardner returned to Afton, Wyoming, to a hero's welcome. Two months later, thieves stole the "Welcome Home" banner that hung at his old school and someone spray-painted an obscenity on the road sign identifying the town as his birthplace. A few weeks before the Olympics, one reporter from the Rocky Mountain News tried to source this enmity. He turned up Delores Willis, the owner of the local bookstore, who said: "I think when you have your 15 minutes of fame, each one of us handles it differently. He let it go to his head for a bit. He was The Rulon and we were The Peons."

Apparently, the local hero reneged on a promise to build a sports centre in the town. Not true, replied his brother, Russell. There were tax issues with the proposed donation. "I hate to say it," he said, "but in this town there are three kinds of success that people resent; when you have success financially, succeed in education and are successful in losing weight."

In which case Gardner really is in trouble. Accommodating women has meant the elimination of some of the men's weight divisions. The American has had to drop from the 130kg to the 120kg category. The weight-loss has sapped some of his brute strength. In return he has gained a little agility, though he will never be mistaken for Darcey Bussell. Mind you, it's a remarkable achievement that he's still able to move around a mat at all.

On Valentine's Day 2002, Gardner was out on a snowmobile near his home when he became trapped in the deep powder. He was there for over 17 hours, nearly succumbing to hypothermia. "I kept thinking all through it that I was going to die," he says. In the end he escaped, though he lost the middle toe of his right foot to frostbite and badly damaged two other toes. He now keeps the middle toe in a jar in his fridge because "when I look at the black and the death in it, it makes me realise how truly lucky I am to be here today".

He didn't fight for almost 18 months. Then he crashed his 2000 Olympic edition Harley-Davidson motorbike, hurting his wrist. He recovered in time for the US Olympic trials, where he beat the world champion, Dremiel Byers. If he wins the gold medal here he intends to give his $30,000 (£17,000) bonus from the US Olympic Committee to Byers - his training partner - and to empty out the fridge. "I think it's time get rid of my toe and move on with my life," he said, adding that he'd bury it next to his favourite old dog.

If that happens, then expect Oprah to dig out Rulon's phone number again. After all, the Queen of American television didn't get where she is today by not recognising a poignant, five-hanky, favourite old dog, toe-burying, human interest story when she sees one.