Wrestling Legend Gardner's Battle of the Buldge

[DixieDestroyer]

2000 Olympic Gold medal (& '04 Bronze) wrestler & (former) MMA fighter Rulon Gardner joins this season's (11) "Biggest Loser" as he seeks to drop from 474 lbs. He wrestled at 286 during the 2000 Olympics & at 264 at the '04 games.

Per Wikipedia..."Rulon Gardner has had an amazing streak of luck with survival. While in grammar school, Rulon was impaled by an arrow in a show-and-tell incident. In 2002, Gardner was stranded on a wilderness snowmobile trip and had to have a toe amputated after suffering frostbite. In 2004, he was hit by a car while riding his motorcycle. In February 2007, Gardner and two others crashed a Cirrus SR-22 airplane into Lake Powell. After surviving the impact, they were forced to swim in 44 °F (7 °C) water for over an hour. The three survived overnight without shelter or fire in 28 °F (âˆ'2 °C) air temperature. His amazing lucky streak continued when a fisherman, out of his usual route, found and picked them up in the morning.".


http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2011/01/04/2011-01-04_biggest_loser_couples_features_a_few_famous_faces_familiar_storylines_and_daytim.html?r=entertainment

Edited by: DixieDestroyer

 

[Colonel_Reb]

I was shocked to see how much weight Gardner put on. I know he'll be able to get the weight off. Amazing stuff that he's been through as well.

 

[white is right]

While I am shocked that he let his body and mental discipline go that much. It's not shocking to see him being over 300 pounds. He competed between 265 to 285. Without training that would make him in the low 300's. I tend to view people that go above 400 (that aren't close to 7')as either feeble minded or incredibly lazy/depressed. The image of William Perry on Fox while celebrity boxing comes to mind.....

 

[DixieDestroyer]

WIR, good points. I feel a similarity between Gardner & myself. I'm holding about 335 (at 6'8) whereas I was 260-265 when I played football in college. I was 245 (8-9% BF) when I met my wife (circa 1996). I wasn't a world class athlete like Gardner by kept under 300 by training Muay Thai Kickboxing, BJJ, playing rec league ball & training hard. Getting married, having (4) kids & working long hours have led to complaceny in diet & training. However, I've cleaned the diet up & gotten back into the gym more consistently this year & already dropped 10 lbs. I'm ramping up the training & diet each week.

 

[white is right]

Well it looks like the Fridge has a story about him and it looks like this might have been the ghost of Rulan Gardner's future if he didn't shed the extreme weight....http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2010/news/story?id=6091766

 

[chris371]

I love the way the narrator says " perry dropped to 190 pounds", as if that were an alarmingly low weight.

Then they say " he got back up to 320 pounds" and happy music is played, as if it were normal and healthy to weigh 300+ pounds. Unbelievably funny. I laughed throughout that whole video!

 

[DixieDestroyer]

Olympic champ Rulon Gardner: Reality TV is not reality

By Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY

Updated 4d 19h ago |
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Olympic champion wrestler Rulon Gardner, who was a contestant on this season's "The Biggest Loser,," says he left the show early because he had accomplished what he wanted, because "there were a lot of issues here at home that needed to be addressed" and because "I wasn't there to play the games."


By Trae Patton, NBC

Rulon Gardner was a contestant on The Biggest Loser.

"My health was back, my weight was back â€" I was three pounds heavier than when I won the Olympic gold medal," Gardner told USA TODAY in a phone interview Thursday, two days after the NBC reality show's finale aired. "Everything was back, and it was time for me to get back to my wife and my business."

Gardner, 39, owns a health club in Logan, Utah.

The 2000 Olympic gold medalist from Wyoming, who weighed as much as 474 pounds before signing on with The Biggest Loser, also is back on the wrestling mat.

He has been to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs three times in recent weeks to train, he said. He is working out at home almost daily, with an eye toward possibly competing at next year's Summer Olympics in London.

"The Biggest Loser, was only a steppingstone to my comeback, to my ultimate success," he said. "It was a vehicle to give me my life back. It was a vehicle to give me my health."

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OPENING UP: Weight affected Gardner's marriage

The statements were Gardner's first since a show that aired in late April revealed that he had unexpectedly left for "personal reasons." He did not appear on the show's finale.

"They asked me to come back, and I had already moved on," Gardner said. "I wasn't eligible for the money (the show awards $100,000 to the voted-off contestant who loses the most weight at home), I wasn't eligible to win the show. My life and my business here are more important than being on TV."

He learned a lot about TV, he said, including that "reality TV is not reality."

"They try to make it interesting," he said. "Well, what about making it real? What about telling the story of somebody losing weight and becoming healthy? Isn't that what life is really about?"

Gardner said he currently weighs 290 pounds; he left the show at 289. He weighed 286 when he beat the seemingly invincible Alexander Karelin of Russia for the Olympic gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling.

He had to beat the odds again to win bronze at the 2004 Games. He nearly froze to death in a 2002 snowmobile accident in the Wyoming wilderness and lost a toe to frostbite.

He retired after the 2004 Olympics but made headlines again when he survived a 2007 small-plane crash at Lake Powell.

In recent years, his weight ballooned. He sought out a spot on The Biggest Loser "for my health and my nutrition and my diet and just my overall well-being." Despite all the theatrics, "I'd do it again," he said.

A comeback at the London Olympics at age 40 would add another dramatic chapter to Gardner's story.

"Ultimately, I didn't look at The Biggest Loser as being my defining moment," Gardner said. "I wasn't there to compete and win the money. I wasn't there to win The Biggest Loser. I was there for my health."

He has it back. And now he could be back.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2011-05-26-rulon-gardner-biggest-loser-reality_N.htm

Edited by: DixieDestroyer