SPORTS | Striving for excellence
16 April 2008
Giving Every Effort
Personal determination helps an Olympian recover from injury
By Rulon Gardner
Wrestler Rulon Gardner was raised on a ranch in Wyoming and earned his place in Olympic history at the 2000 Sydney Games. In a match dubbed the “miracle on the mat,” Gardner took down his heavyweight rival, Russian Alexander Karelin, who had not lost in 13 years before his matchup with the American farm boy. But Gardner’s greatest victory came later, at the 2004 games in Athens when he took a bronze medal. Compared to that four-year-old gold, you might say, “So what?” But Gardner had his second trip to the Olympic Games after an accident in which his feet were frost-bitten. Doctors feared he might not even walk again and warned that his Olympic career could be over.
That day, it was February 14, 2002. Me and two of my friends, we decided to go snowmobiling. I wanted to have fun with my friends, relieve a little stress, so we went snowmobiling. I got sidetracked in a place that my two friends couldn’t get to me. The only way to save myself was to follow the river, so I followed the river until my snowmobile got stuck between two big boulders. I was trying to pull my snowmobile out, and I slipped and fell into the river. As I fell in the river, I realized I was in a really bad position. That day I was less prepared than I should have been. Coat, gloves, a hat, matches – I didn’t have those types of things. I had to spend the entire night, and it was 25 below zero by morning. I spent a total of 18 hours out there stranded by myself.
If I was going to survive, I knew my only choice was to keep fighting and keep fighting back.
So after I got rescued and started recovering, I would get up every day and just expect myself to come back to compete again. Some people said, “Why are you coming back?” For me, it wasn’t about medals or anything else. It’s about me going out there and doing what I felt was the important thing that I needed to do in my life. That was to wrestle. A lot of people doubted me, and the chances of me coming back to the team were very, very slim, but I still came back. I had my determination about what was important to me, and I didn’t care what other people said.
I was the youngest of nine kids, so with eight brothers and sisters you have to know who you are, what you want, and where you are going in life. You have to make yourself special. The only way you can do that is by having determination every day.
I wasn’t really good as a wrestler at a young age. I had a brother who was 16 months older, and every day, all the way through high school, my brother used to beat me, but I continued to work, and I won the state championship my senior year.
By my junior or senior year at college, I said to myself one day, “There’s a chance you can go to the Olympics.” So I thought about it, and I told myself I had to give 100 percent every day and reach my potential. I wasn’t going to give a half effort; I was going to give everything I could.
When I started training for the Olympic team, the U.S. heavyweight was named Matt Ghaffari. He took second place at the Olympics in 1996, and in 1998 he took second at the world competition. He was better than me, but I just got up every day, and said to myself, “You may not beat him today or tomorrow, but you’re going to beat him eventually, coming back at it every day.” That’s what drove me to get better.
I go out and talk to kids now, and I tell them they could have a chance to go to the Olympics. They’ll look back at me, and say, “Right. You’re kidding me, right?” I just tell them how I did it. It’s all about realizing internally that you can become strong and powerful.
When I went to the Olympics, I wanted to represent the United States; I wanted to represent every person in this country and make them proud. That’s why an Olympic athlete competes. It’s not about winning medals or anything else. It’s about representing your country and loving the place you are from.
