It’s our monthly look back at history–all year long we’re looking at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and Paralympics in honor of the 25th anniversary of these Games.
Sydney 2000 is widely considered the best Summer Olympics in history, and we don’t even have time to get to all of the amazing stories in this episode’s sports. This time, we look back at the swimming and wrestling competitions.
But first, Alison recaps the para swimming competition. Sydney 2000 was a big turning point in Paralympics history, as it was the largest Summer Paralympics to date, with 123 countries, 3,879 athletes, and record ticket sales. The para swimming competition was enormous–on par with Paris 2024–and it featured the most decorated medalist in Paralympic history: Trischa Zorn.
Then we stay in the pool for the Olympic swimming competition, which is just epic, given Australians’ love of swimming and their enthusiasm in the stands at Sydney 2000.
There are so many stories that it was difficult to choose just one, but Alison looks at the Australian swimming legend Ian Thorpe (aka Thorpedo) and the amazing performance of the Australian men’s 4x100m freestyle relay. Get your air guitars ready!
Then we switch over to the wrestling area. At Sydney 2000, only men competed in wrestling, and because athletes compete in either freestyle or Greco-Roman, Jill wanted to tell a story from each style.
Again, it was hard to choose just one, but in freestyle wrestling, the story of Canadian welterweight Daniel Igali was too good not to revisit. An immigrant from Nigeria, Igali embraced his new homeland, improved on his wrestling abilities, and achieved something no other Canadian had.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a look back at Sydney 2000 without the biggest upset of them all: Rulon Gardner vs. Aleksandr Karelin in Greco-Roman Wrestling. This is a David vs. Goliath story that stunned the entire world.
Our 400th show is coming up! Join us on Monday, July 14, from 8-10PM ET to celebrate. We’ll be having an online meetup, so come and meet some fellow TKFLASTANIs!
Find a list of sources used in this episode here.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
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395-Sydney 2000: Thorpedo and the Experiment – Olympic Swimming and Wrestling, Paralympic Para Swimming
Jill Jaracz: Hello, and welcome to another history episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. If you love the games, we are the show for you. I am your host, Jill Jaracz, joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison, hello, how are you?
Alison Brown: Hello. I have been having so much fun.
I think I say that at every Sydney episode. I have been so much, I have been having so much fun going back and, and watching whatever event we’re talking about. ’cause it was, it was such a great Olympics and I’m learning about the Paralympics of that era and how amazing so many of those athletes were.
Jill Jaracz: I know, and I just realized like right before we got on, like, oh, I probably should have done a Sydney mix for our opening theme song instead of going to our history music.
Maybe that’ll show up for the last half of the year. We don’t know because there are so many amazing races, and competitions that you get over not overwhelmed. It’s just like, oh, I’d really like to have a few weeks to get to every story.
Alison Brown: the whole point of my story and when we talk about it, it will be, I’m gonna tell you a list of like 10 stories.
I could have told you that I’m not telling you, but go back and find those as well.
Celebrate our 400th episode!
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. Well, we are just five episodes away from the big 400 episodes for us.
Alison Brown: Can you believe that? I mentioned that to my daughter. I said, oh, we’re doing a call in episode. And she looked at me and I said, yeah, it’s 400.
We’ve been doing this almost eight years. And she just said, has it been that long? I know. That’s the weird part. I. It’s like, on the one hand it feels like we’ve always been doing the show, and then on the other hand, it feels like we just started and we’re really actually just figuring out how to do the show, which I guess is kind of the best of both worlds.
Right?
Jill Jaracz: I hope so. I hope I, I hope we are figuring out how to do the show enough to entertain you, but we would like to celebrate. Episode 400 with you listeners. We will be recording on Monday, July 14th from eight to 10:00 PM Eastern Time in the US and we’ll have a link in the show notes where you can click on it and.
Come into our studio and chat with us. So we’ll be able to have up to nine people total. So I believe that means that seven people can come in at one time or another. It’ll be like having a party conversation. Bring your own drinks, bring your own snacks, and come in and chat with us for a little while and then head on out when, when you’re ready.
And, uh, we’ll have a whole bunch of shuk leis talking to each other. And this should hopefully be a good time.
Alison Brown: And if you just wanna pop in and say hello for two seconds at, you know, eight 19 or 9 0 7, that’s fine. You know, it’s kind of a two hour open window to to come and go. And if you have questions, great.
If you don’t, if you just wanna wave and say hello. That’s amazing because we used to say in the outro, you know, we love hearing from you and we really, really do. We get so excited. So I, no, I’m super excited. I think you’re super excited to just see faces,
Jill Jaracz: right? And it’s not like, like last year we got to go to trials and, or I got to go to trials and, hang out with some of you and it was just like being with friends.
So I would love to hang out with you virtually. And had that friend conversation too. And you got to hang out with some people in, Boston this year. Right? I
Alison Brown: got to, I got to visit with some of our friends and a couple times a couple people came up to me and they introduced themselves and it, I didn’t recognize their faces at all, but the minute they opened their mouth.
And spoke, and I think we, I think people will have the same reaction with us. They’d look at us and be like, who are you? And then we say, you know, keep the flame alive and, oh, I know you, I know that voice.
Jill Jaracz: So yes, we would love to hear your voices and see your faces. Monday, July 14th from eight to 10:00 PM Eastern linked to the studio will be in the show notes and it will be all over the Earth socials as well.
Sydney 2000: Para Swimming
Jill Jaracz: So history. All year long. We’re looking back at one particular games this year. It is Sydney 2000 as it’s the 25th anniversary of those games. Today we’re talking about swimming and Paris swimming. You’ve got that and I’ve got wrestling. So take it away.
Alison Brown: So we’re gonna start with para Swimming. There were 575 para swimmers from 62 countries competed in 169 events.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. That in itself is like almost the winter games right there.
Alison Brown: I know. It, it for comparison, Paris was 600 swimmers, so not that much different, but only 141 events. Oh, wow. So things have consolidated, I think, and, and they’ve changed some of the classifications over the years.
This was also the first Paralympics where the S 14, which is intellectual disabilities.
Theme Music: Oh, okay. Came into play.
Alison Brown: That’s the last I’m gonna talk about that. Uh, Canadian para swimmer, Jessica Sloan won the most individual gold medals of the whole Paralympics. So a para swimmer was one of the most successful athletes.
She had six titles and also set six world records. She was only 17 at the time, but she did not compete at any other Paralympics. Many years later, she seemed to express some regret over that, but she said she was a teenager and she had a lot of distractions with training. But I loved this quote from her.
She said, quote, I wasn’t having fun with, uh, I wasn’t having the fun I should with it. I was a teenager and I wanted to explore more options, which I think. I would hope a lot of teenagers will do. We’re gonna talk teenagers on swimming. That is for sure. That’s gonna be a theme later,
Jill Jaracz: but that, that’s one of those, you have to make choices in life and that’s the choice you wanted to make at the time.
Alison Brown: You know, she ended up moving as an adult to Turks and Caicos and living her life there. So not too bad off
Jill Jaracz: no
Alison Brown: American. Jason wining a double below the knee amputee, won his third consecutive 400 meter freestyle Paralympic gold medal in the S eight category, and broke his own world record.
He overcame a significant deficit at the start, which was a problem for him. He always had a slow start and he ended up winning the race by more than eight seconds. Whoa, that’s a lot. He also went on to become a prosthetist.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, nice.
Alison Brown: So you’ll see his name. When I was doing some Google searches to kind of find out where he went.
He speaking at all these prosthetic conferences. And I said he knows, he knows about being an athlete with amputation. So that was fun to know what happens to these people later. Mm-hmm. Especially the Paralympians of this era, who unfortunately didn’t get the recognition most of the time, that they definitely deserved.
The, uh, host country Australia did very well in the pool. They won 14 gold medals, including the men’s four by 100 meter freestyle, S 14 relay. These four guys are fantastic. They called themselves the awesome amigos, Patrick Donnay, Paul Cross, Stewart Pike, and Brett Reed shaved their heads the morning of the race.
Three of them also shaved their eyebrows. Wow. And maybe that helped ’cause they broke a world record. Nice. And Sydney was also the sixth of seven. Paralympic, uh, Paralympics for American Tricia Zorn. Zorn won 41 gold medals and 55 medals. Overall, the most of any Paralympian ever in any sport. She’s amazing.
I think we talked about her in Atlanta. We could have talked about her in Seoul. I mean she’s, she was around a very long time and in Sydney she won three silvers at the a hundred meter distance in brushstroke, butterfly and individual medley. She got another silver in the 200 meter Im and bronze in the 50 meter breaststroke, all in the S 12 category, which is a visually impaired category.
If you don’t know about Zorn, ugh, what an amazing woman. And she has since become a civil rights attorney fighting for disability rights, especially for veterans. So someone to know very little video, needless to say, could not find any of these races.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, that’s a bummer.
Sydney 2000: Swimming – the stories we can’t include
Alison Brown: You know what video I did find?
Jill Jaracz: Olympic swimming races.
Alison Brown: Oh my goodness. So many Olympic swimming stories. So as I mentioned, I’m gonna tell you all the stories I could have told you. But I’m just gonna give you the headlines. So this was the most successful of Dana Torres’s five Olympics. Really? She, yes. She won three individual bronze medals and two rayle golds.
One of those bronze medals included a tie with teammate Jenny Thompson in the a hundred meter free, team USA included two of the greatest backstrokers of all time, Lenny k Kleberg, and Aaron Pearsall. Name we haven’t heard in a long time. Wow. But you will remember, uh, they went one, two in the 200 meter and Lenny won the a hundred meter as well.
Netherlands had an incredible success in the pool with two old friends, Inga De Bruin and Peter Vanden Hoen Bond. Who is, uh, Ben Water Worth’s favorite,
Jill Jaracz: right, because I was gonna say, uh, off the podium, Ben Waterworth a, I believe, dressed up like him for Halloween one year.
Alison Brown: I’m still waiting to see that picture.
And those two, a Dutch won eight medals between them and one of Von and Hogan Bond’s medals was in the a hundred meter free where he defeated the Russian rocket, Alexander Popoff. Oh wow.
Theme Music: Who had
Alison Brown: won that race in 92 and 96. He was going for a three-peat, but failed and, and got the silver. Not a bad trip in the pool for Australia.
Uh, Susie O’Neal finished her Olympic career with a gold and a silver. It was the first Olympics for a teenager, Liesel Jones. She was 15 in 2000 and she won silver in the a hundred meter brushstroke. She ended up with a complete set for that race. She won bronze in 2004 and finally gold in that same race in 2008, and she’s also got six other Olympic medals.
Theme Music: Chevy. Not a bad,
Alison Brown: not a bad start. And Grant Hackett won the first of his back to back gold medals in the 1500 meter.
Sydney 2000: Ian Thorpe and the Men’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay
Alison Brown: Well, what’s left? Ian Thorpe. Ah, so, but no one carried the hopes of the host nation more than Sydney’s own. Ian Thorpe at the 1998 World Aquatic World Championships. In his leg of the four by 200 meter Redley Medley, Thorpe swam the fourth fastest 200 meters in history.
He was 15. Wow. So by the start of the 2000 Olympics, the hype surrounding the 17-year-old was off the charts and incredible amount of pressure he had become nicknamed the torpedo one for, he wore the full body suit. So he sort of looked like an A torpedo under the water, but he also had incredible underwater speed.
Theme Music: Wow. So
Alison Brown: it really just came out, especially when it came out from the turn. Off the wall. He would just shoot off there. He was a, a backend swimmer, so to speak. His second half was always faster than his first half, and the Australian media had declared him both unbeatable and invincible because at 17 he had already broken 10 world records.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: Now then in 2000, as we heard both, uh, again in Paris, Australia and us have a little bit of, um, a rivalry in the pool, shall we say.
Theme Music: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: Healthy level of competition. And the men’s four by 100 meter freestyle relay. Became the race that focused this Australia US competition. The race was instituted in the Olympics in 1964, and the US had won every gold medal in this race because it wasn’t SW in 1980 when the US boycotted, I think there just weren’t enough four by 100 teams in 1980 because of the boycott.
So they ended up not swimming the race because they swam it on the women’s side, but not on the men’s side. If we ever get Moscow as our historical Olympics, we have so many things to cover. American. Gary Hall Jr. Had won the gold in that race as part of the relay team in 1996, and he had earned a spot on the 2000 team.
He was asked about the challenge that Thorpe and the Australian team would pose in this race and hall. Unfortunately for him, said, we will smash them like guitars. Woo. Now there’s some controversy as to whether he was misquoted or misunderstood. ’cause he recognized how good the Australian team was. But the press just latched onto that one little phrase, and as if the Australian swimmers needed any more motivation to beat the Americans, they had it.
Thanks, Gary Hall Jr. So on the first night of the swimming competition, basically the first night of the Olympics, Ian Thorpe lived up to all the hype. He won the 400 meter individual, freestyle race world record right off the bat. So on the same night he was gonna be racing in the relay with Michael Clem, Chris Fiddler at, and Ashley Callis. US had the fastest time in the heats, but Michael, Clem and Thorpe were not in the heats. They were getting replaced. Very typical. Michael Clem also has some gold medals of his own. This was a stocked team. Okay. Supposedly Thorpe was gonna have enough time between the metal ceremony of the 400 meters to get ready for the four by 100 metal, uh, meter.
Race. The finals only problem puts on his suit. Zipper breaks, puts on his backup suit. Zipper breaks, puts on his second backup suit breaks, broke all of his three spare suits, so now he’s gotta put on the wet. Swimsuit from his 400 meters, and this is one of these full body, neck to ankle, down to his wrists, swimsuits.
Jill Jaracz: And they take like 45 minutes to put on.
Alison Brown: Yes, he does not have 45 minutes, but otherwise he’s coming out naked. Okay? He’s struggling to get a soup. The teams come out on the deck for the final of the four by 100 meter thorpe’s not there. He’s gotta get there before the Australian team is introduced. ’cause if he’s not there for the introductions, Australia’s gonna be dq.
Thankfully, they were in lane five. As the announcements start, he’s running down the hole, still trying to get his suit on.
They’re announcing team after team as they start to announce. Australian team, he walks out on the deck. Wow. And has to kind of shimmy very quickly over to his spot in, in lane five. He’s still pulling at the suit. He doesn’t have his track suit on, you know, all the other swimmers have there team uniform on?
No, he’s still pulling at the sleeves of his suit. I think they zipped him up as he was coming down the tunnel.
Jill Jaracz: Holy cow.
Alison Brown: And he’s still fussing. Thankfully he’s gonna be the anchor leg. ’cause I think he needed all that time to still get this suit on properly.
Okay, he’s there. The race starts. Michael Clem goes first. He’s up against American Anthony Irvin. Clem swam his best a hundred meters ever, and in fact, broke the a hundred meter world record. Americans, Neil Walker and Jason Leeza in the next two legs make up the difference. So by the time we reach the anchor leg, Australia’s got a lead of two tenths of a second.
Whoa. Crowd’s going nuts as if I need to mention that. Okay. Anchor leg comes. It’s Ian Thorpe versus Gary Hall Jr. Hall pulled ahead in the first half of the race and he’s leading at the turn. Remember what I said before about Thorpe being better on the second half of the race. He took the turn, does his torpedo move, and in the last 10 meters of a race, pulls ahead Australia wins the gold.
Wow. This is not even the most important moment of the evening. Here it comes. So Thorpe immediately pulls himself out of the pool. He just like pushes himself outta the deck to celebrate with his teammates. And they’re cheering and, and the crowd is going nuts. And Michael Clem strikes a pose that became the shot of headlines across Australia.
He plays the air guitar.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, nice.
Alison Brown: Of course, the rest of the team joins in. The crowd joins in, and yes, it is the Australians who have smashed the Americans like air guitars. Wow. But be fair, we are gonna follow up on that. So. Thorpe won another gold and two ci uh, silvers in Sydney, making him the most successful athlete at the Sydney Olympics.
He added four more Olympic medals four years later in Athens. Then he suddenly retired, if you remember this. And he has since talked about the severe depression that he experienced. And he said being in the public eye at such a young age was really tough on him and that pressure that he was kind of carrying the hopes of the nation, talked about suicidal ideation, and he talked about self-medicating with alcohol, kind of got himself treatment, turned his life around.
And has since become a real advocate for men’s mental health especially, and athletes. And also, and this I thought was super important, more funding for mental health treatment.
He also came out as gay and has become a real advocate for the LGBT LGBTQ plus community. Again, especially athletes and, and young men.
And how he was really afraid to come out when he was that. Very famous teenager.
Jill Jaracz: Right? And all of the pressure just from the Olympics, PR plus pressure of not being public about who you are, that, you know, that just doubles everything. I.
Alison Brown: Exactly. Thorpe generally lives a quiet life, but he did, uh, do the, channel nine in Australia’s commentary for the, uh, swimming in Paris.
I saw him in the workroom.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, did he really?
Alison Brown: I did with his giant binder, and he’s doing his work. He just seemed so lovely to all the people he was working with, and so charming. I just couldn’t muster up the courage to go and say, hi, Mr. Thorpe. Could I take a selfie with you? But I get the feeling he would’ve been cool with it.
’cause he really just behind the scenes, off camera, just sitting there drinking his tea and, and getting ready, seemed such good energy from Ian Thorpe. Not to forget about Gary Hall Jr. And despite his disappointment on that first night of racing, hall won three more medals in Sydney, including a gold in the 50 meter free and the gold in the four by 100 meter medley relay,
Jill Jaracz: okay,
Alison Brown: where the US did beat Australia.
Australia won the Silver and Hall won a total of 10 Olympic medals over three games. And we’ve mentioned him recently because his home and all those medals were destroyed in the recent LA fires and the IOC arranged for him to receive all replacement medals. So that’s been kind of a nice feel. Good story.
And Hall’s obviously been doing a lot of interviews and he said one of the first phone calls he got after the fire was from Ian Thorpe. Aw. To say, Hey man, I’m really sorry about what happened. And he also heard, he said from Michael Clem and Grant Hackett. Nice. Both Australian swimmers that we’ve mentioned today.
And Hall in a, in a much nicer quote for now, uh, has said that’s what the Olympic family is rivals yes, but also friends.
Jill Jaracz: Very nice. Very nice. And in
Alison Brown: a, and in a just a side note, Michael Clem has been quoted as saying, the first person who congratulated him when they won that relay was Gary Hall Jr.
Jill Jaracz: Aw, that’s nice.
Alison Brown: I’m gonna be saying the torpedo now as much as I possibly can. I had completely forgotten about the nickname and I said, ah.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, you have some sources.
Alison Brown: I have a lot of sources when I usually don’t, which is kind of funny. the International Paralympic committee site, the LA Times, the Canadian Paralympic Committee Site Sport Inclusion Australia, the U-S-O-P-C Museum, Paramatta History and Heritage, Oly Pedia Swim, swam Sporting News, CNN, world Aquatics Daily Mail.
The guardian. We’ll have links to that relay race from YouTube.
Sydney 2000: Freestyle Wresting – Daniel Igali
Jill Jaracz: Excellent. So I took wrestling and when we think about wrestling at Sydney 2000, there’s one epic match and that is in Greco-Roman between heavy super heavyweights, Rulon Gardner and Alexander Carlin. We’ll get to that. there are a lot of other interesting stories from wrestling.
Much like you. It was like, oh, you gotta pick something. You know, we have doping, we have upsets, we have protests. And there’s one other topic that we do love to talk about, and the freestyle welterweight category gives us that story. So we’re gonna talk about Daniel Igali. He was born in Nigeria, one of 21 children.
He grew up wrestling because it was an important part of his ija tribal culture. And then after an Olympic wrestler visited his school, he’s like, Hey, do you wanna learn how to wrestle Olympic style? He said, okay. So Daniel learned how to wrestle competitively and started competing for his country when he was 16.
He was a natural and quickly won many national titles in Nigeria. In 1994, that was one of his national title years, and he went on to compete At the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada. Canada killed it at these Commonwealth games. They won nine out of 10 gold medals in wrestling. And Igali who had finished 11 11th was so impressed with the Canadians that he wanted to learn how to wrestle like them.
Nigeria in 1994 was a pretty rough place. There had been a military coup the previous year and promised democratic elections were canceled. There were also strikes and ethnic violence and a whole cascade of problems and stemming from the instability in the country. And that meant Daniel Igali realized that he had an opportunity.
No, he was not a Nigerian prince. But he was one to get an opportunity and he took the opportunity claiming refugee status and so he could stay in Canada. And he lived with a volunteer driver from the Commonwealth Games. Oh, so he had
Alison Brown: met
Jill Jaracz: a Probably
Alison Brown: his driver.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And he’s like, Hey, can I live with you and be a refugee?
And the driver called his wife and there he’s like, Hey, what do you think about a Nigerian coming to live with us? And she’s like, sure. So. He ends up going to college in Canada and to help him become a citizen of the country. His friend’s mother, Maureen Metheny, adopted him and she unfortunately died of cancer before he won the World wrestling freestyle champs in 1999.
that. Match made him a contender for Sydney 2000. So unfortunately, this woman, who was extraordinarily important in his life, passed away, could not see him wrestle at the Olympics. So he at Sydney, he faced a tough pool that he barely got out of. He ended up undefeated, but only by decision, his second match against Iran’s Amir Tavian was tied after nine minutes, but the decision went Ali’s way. His road did not get any easier. He, in the quarterfinals, he went to overtime to defeat Cuban y uh, Jovanni Sanchez, and then in the semis he was to face the other favorite in this weight class. American Lincoln m that too came down to an overtime decision.
In the finals, igali faced Russia’s arson Giov. They were evenly mashed throughout, but about halfway through Igali got giov in a gut wrench and he scored two points on that and that put him ahead for good. When the final buzzer sounded, Golley won gold and became, Canada’s. This is her favorite bit first ever gold medalist in wrestling.
Alison Brown: And I just gotta say this though. He’s one of 21 children in his family. No wonder he was a natural at wrestling. I only have two siblings and we’re both, we’re all girls. And it makes you a scrappy little fighter when you’ve got all those siblings.
Jill Jaracz: Right? Right. so in Igali’s on mat celebration of his gold medal, he had a Canadian flag. He laid it on the ground. He danced around it twice and then he knelt down and kissed it, and Canadians just loved that moment. It became a thing in Canada during his coverage of Sydney 2000 and really endeared him to, uh, the whole country.
he did go on to compete in Athens placing sixth and afterwards, Igali retired from competition. He went back to Nigeria to open a school in 2006, which is something he wanted to do. Named it after his Canadian surrogate mother, Maureen. Sadly, that same year when he was in Nigeria, he was at home watching TV with his brother when robbers broke in, stole about $13,000 Canadian in cash, phones and laptops, and then stabbed him in the back of the neck and he almost died.
Uh, Gole survived. he did go back to Canada for a time, uh, in this. He’s also trying to become a, a Canadian politician. He’s, he’s running for office. Does not get elected though, but he ends up returning to Nigeria to work on a school. And he also took on major roles in the Nigerian Wrestling Federation to build the sport in that country.
And he is also taken on roles in United World wrestling. Overall, he’s been, uh, inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame, Canada Sports Hall of Fame, Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, and the International Wrestling Hall of Fame. So that, I thought was an interesting story outta freestyle
Sydney 2000: Greco-Roman Wrestling: Rulon Gardner vs Aleksandr Karelin
Jill Jaracz: but we, we still have the big story from Sydney 2000 that,
Alison Brown: and I’m waiting for you to have to talk about this sport.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, Greco-Roman.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: So the super weight, the it’s, it’s really gonna be super heavyweight. It’s gonna be the hard thing to say. This time, the super heavyweight division of Greco-Roman should have been history making, and it was just not for the expected reasons. The favorite in this match was a giant.
Literally and figuratively Russian Alexander Karelin, who had been a giant ever since he came out of his mother’s womb weighing 15 pounds.
Alison Brown: Oh, dear Lord, that poor woman. I think every woman who has ever given birth just clutched their knees together in absolute pain.
Jill Jaracz: He grew up to be six foot three. He weighed 2 86 pounds.
and legend has it that the Siberian considered his toughest challenger to be a refrigerator that he single, single handedly hauled up eight flights of stairs to his apartment. No other person. Was good enough for him He was 33 by the time he was in Sydney. He had dominated the super heavyweight division for years.
He went undefeated for 13 years. He never lost an international competition. He had won the gold that sold 1988 Barcelona, 92, Atlanta 96, while representing three different countries. At Sydney, he, is going to try to be the first person ever to win four gold medals in wrestling. He was the first one to win three.
Can he be the first four peak? So at Sydney, corre and sailed through the field. Continuing his multi-year streak of not conceding a single point. Nobody thought that he wouldn’t stand on top of the podium again.
Alison Brown: I question your word though of sailed through the co the, the
Jill Jaracz: early rounds.
Alison Brown: More like he stomped and crushed
Jill Jaracz: and threw. I mean, he, he was known for this lift where he just lifted people and threw ’em on their back and that was it. Like the show was always over. I.
Alison Brown: More like the competitors sailed through the air as they
Jill Jaracz: were hauled by
Alison Brown: Alexander Carlin.
Jill Jaracz: I will have to look. I didn’t look for this, but I wonder if somebody has put together like a smash cut of all of his throws like that because it, it really is impressive.
we’ll talk about one of those bouts in a second. ’cause on the other side of the bracket is American Rulon Gardner, uh, American, uh, Rulon is 29 years old in Sydney. He grew up on a dairy farm in Afton, Wyoming, uh, 6,100 feet above sea level. He was one of nine children and spent a lot of time doing farm chores, so that’s where he gets a lot of strength and conditioning in from, lifting hay, feeding calves, hauling calves, pushing cows.
Toting milking irrigation pipes, you name it. He had to do it. he was a big kid. He got bullied in school, got called fatso, and somehow he didn’t let that get to him. life on the farm was very tough, and when he was eight, their milking barn burned down. Their feed business was failing, and his brother Ronald died.
So he’s got all this kind of. A good family life, but in a way like a really tough family life background. And he had done week long summer wrestling camps starting when he was six years old, but he didn’t start wrestling a full season until he was junior high. And in high school, he became a state champion, did two years at a junior college in Idaho, won the National Junior College title.
In 1991, he transferred over to Nebraska and he finished fourth in the NCAA championships. Then someone suggested switch to Greco-Roman. So we did, and he continued on competing, but he never won any medals at any international championships. Before Sydney Ruland, Gardner and Alexander Corin had met just once in competition.
Really, they did. They met in 1997. Corin used his signature lift, reverse lift on Gardner three times. Pretty much dropping him on his head every time. And 1 5, 0. No big problem. So. We’ve only got this little bit of history between the two. It seems like Carlin is faded to win, but Gardner’s kind of a natural super heavyweight.
He also weighs 2 86 at Sydney. He was also undefeated in his pools, but compared to Carlin, who was in a pool of three wrestlers, Gardner was in a pool of four. So he had to compete one extra match to get out of his pool. But when he did, he went straight to the semifinals. He didn’t have to do quarterfinals, although.
Carlin did, but like no big deal for Carlin. It’s not, still not giving up any points. Right?
Alison Brown: Lift, bounce. Done.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Uh, so Gardner went to the semifinals where he faced Israeli Yuri Yic. Gardner was down zero two after five minutes in the second. And we don’t have much go to go. he’s still down when original time ends.
Because neither athlete scored three points. It goes to overtime at the start of overtime. Gardner gets a point and his coach is yelling, this is kind of a fun match to watch. ’cause you hear his coach really well, like watch out Rulan and he’s like, you’ve got plenty of time, rulan. And he did. He had plenty of time in overtime.
He got two more points. One that matched three, two, but just barely. Final is electric jam packed. A lot of famous people there, including IOC, president Juan Antonio Samara, who of course is there because he wants to put the medal on the four-time gold medal champion. Also there on hand, Vladimir Putin there to see Karelin.
Alison Brown: Oh no.
Jill Jaracz: when you see. Carlin and Gardner on the mat, even though they’re the same weight, they look completely different. Like Carlin is this chiseled man. He, he does look like he’s chiseled out of marble. His signet is a little baggy on him. Gardner, he’s got strong legs, but he fills out his signet pretty.
He’s a little chubby looking. He’s got a round phase. Totally different looking, but he is one of the most well conditioned athletes in the competition. And in the beginning, we’ll, we’ll put a video on the show notes because commentators likened the Gardner wind to the 1980 Miracle on Ice saying this would be known as the miracle on the mat if he won.
And this is like right away and nobody knows what’s gonna happen in the first partier. uh, where, Lin’s on top, he fails to throw Gardner. He can’t lift him up and do his patented move. Gardner continues to fend him off. First period ends zero, zero. Second period starts in a clinch and they do a coin toss to do the clinch.
Carlin. wins the toss. So he has a minute to score or he gets penalized a point and basically like you clinch him and you either wanna like throw ’em down, Dulce tone to Jay, Jason Bryant. Hopefully I’m getting this right. You wanna throw ’em down or push him out and you can get a point there. But the unthinkable happens in this clinch Karelin broke his grip and because he did that, he got penalized a point.
And this is a whole like deal because nobody can believe this. Officials stop the clock. They review the tape for a little while and they give Gardner the point
Alison Brown: because no one could believe Carlin did this.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right,
Alison Brown: right. Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Then the commentators start talking about rein’s first Olympic gold medal, which was a come from behind win, where he did the lift at the end. And they say he can still do that. He can still do that, but he’s also looking pretty tired right now, and they’re wondering if age is catching up to him. So near the end of the second period.
Gardner gets called for passivity, and again, we’re doing the partier again. Carlin has another opportunity to lift him up and throw him down on his head. Can’t do it. Can’t get him more than a couple inches above. No luck regulation. Time ends. We don’t have a three point score yet. Three minute overtime, seventh minute.
Gardner gets called for passivity again. Corralling goes on top. Lifts Gardner a little bit, but can’t get the leverage to flip him over. Gardner friends him off for the rest of the remaining time and wins Gold one zero. The Americans in the audience, it should include his entire family, made it over.
There they go wild. Gartner does a cartwheel. A somersault. And that’s one of like the big memories of that win is like he does his cartwheel. He does his somersault very, very methodically with the somersault, and then he takes the American flag and trots around the mat for a victory lap. Makes for a much different metal ceremony than we had anticipated, especially samran.
this is also a time where the gold medalists. their medal first. So we have, yeah, it’s really weird. I didn’t have enough time to figure out when the, the switch happened, ’cause I remember there being a switch. But yeah, the gold medal gets it first and then silver and bronze, which is very odd because you had this big excitement and then you’re like, oh wait, we gotta get these other two people their prize too.
And so. Gardner gets his gold medal first and then a very disappointed rein got the silver and then Dmitri Belka from Belarus won the bronze beating Rulon old Israeli opponent. So that was it for Carin and wrestling. He had left his shoes on the mat signaling his retirement, then went on to what would become a pretty successful political career.
Gardner has had. Kind of a rough go of it. He was in a snowmobile accident in 2002, suffered hy hypothermia and frostbite, which ended up in an an amputated toe. He kept wrestling and went on to Athens where he won bronze and then he retired after Athens life since competition, it sounds pretty challenging.
He had another near-death experience with hypothermia in 2007, was in a small plane crash that, uh, crashed into Lake Powell, Utah, and he and his buddies spent an hour swimming in 44 degree weather to, or 44 degree water to get to shore. They had to spend the night there alone, freezing temperatures, and luckily they found somebody the next day who could help rescue them.
He’s also been on The Biggest Loser, the weight loss reality TV show took 173 pounds off his then 474 pound frame apparently has put a lot of that weight back on. He does now coach high school wrestling ’cause he got a degree in physical education from Nebraska. So he coaches high school wrestling. He’s an insurance agent and he does motivational speaking.
Might have something to do with 2034 because I did see, a picture of him at some kind of celebration for us. I don’t remember if it’s Salt Lake City 2034 or Paris 2024, where he’s one of the Olympians in the crowd. So maybe he’ll be hanging out doing something with them.
Alison Brown: And I remember what a star he became after that.
I mean, you never expect a wrestler, especially in the United States, but he was everywhere that summer
Jill Jaracz: he was. And he got to, take the flag in for the closing ceremonies and just. everything. He was in a milk commercial. He was in e all the TV shows. He really became the face, and again, much like Ian Thorpe in a different way, the pressure after the games and after the, the surprise success that nobody saw, but then the crush of media attention and what do you do?
And, trying to get opportunities where you can, it, it’s tough. but wrestling one of the main stories of Sidney 2000 and where the unthinkable happened,
Alison Brown: that’s why you play the games, right? Because on paper, ghrelin was unbeatable. I mean, nobody could touch him, especially, you know, not this American who had not had a ton of international success.
But even if you do, no, I do not. I hate to say this, I’m sorry. UL set tones of Jason Bryan. I generally do not enjoy wrestling. Mm-hmm. But that match because if you love the Olympics, that’s that match.
Jill Jaracz: Yes,
Alison Brown: it is. It’s
Jill Jaracz: that moment. One of the top moments of all Olympic hi history, I think, is that. We’ll lot to work on top a look, top Olympic moments across history, but that is one you come back to again and again and again.
Sources for me are the CBC, the Canadian Encyclopedia Canadian Immigrant, Canadian Olympic Committee, flow Wrestling, McLeans Edia, uh, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ref World Database, United World Wrestling, wrestling Canada. olympics.com. Salt Lake Tribune, sports Illustrated Time, the official history of the Olympic Games in the IOC Athens to Beijing, 1894 to 2008 by David Miller, uh, USA today, and I town Lift.
Alison Brown: I’m exhausted. Just talk. Just But these were such great stars and so much fun and, and people we keep coming back to. ’cause you watch the race that I was talking about and you watch the Match you were talking about and it’s the that people moment where they achieve everything.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And you
Alison Brown: see it.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I know what I’m doing with my afternoon is watching some torpedo
Alison Brown: God, and he’s so charming. So charming. Oh, next time Ian, I’m gonna work up the courage. You may be sorry I said that. I’ll be good, I promise.
Jill Jaracz: Alright, we will have a link to all of our sources in the show notes, and that is going to do it for this episode.
Get in touch and coming soon
Jill Jaracz: Please let us know what your favorite memories from Sydney 2000 are.
Alison Brown: You can chat with us and other listeners on our Facebook group. Keep The Flame Alive Podcast. Email us at Flame Alive pod@gmail.com, and the voicemail and text line is always open at 2 0 8 3 5 2 6 3 4 8. That’s 2 0 8. Flame it and you can get even more Olympics and Paralympics from our weekly newsletter.
You can sign up for that@flamealivepod.com and we’ll have a link to that. Lots and lots and lots of stuff. This week in the show notes.
Jill Jaracz: Next week we will continue looking at another slice of Olympic history ’cause you know how technology improves with every games I. Well, someone has to. Im choose and implement a tech strategy and we have got an interesting interview with it. Consultant Pascal Tio, who worked on Olympic technologies starting in Albertville 1992.
He was also the IOC Director of technology for a few years and consulted on London 2012 in Paris 2024. He tells us. All about the tech challenges of an Olympics, and there is so much that you don’t even realize, and that’s just from looking at what technology was like in 1992 to what we’ve got today. So be sure to tune into that and have your mind blown.
Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive.