Aleksandr Karelin

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Aleksandr Karelin
File:Aleksandr Karelin WCG-2013.jpg
Personal information
Nationality Russian
Born (1967-09-19) 19 September 1967 (age 57)
Novosibirsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Height 6 ft 3 in (191 cm)[nb 1]
Weight 285 lb (129 kg)
Sport
Country  Soviet Union (1987–1991)
Olympic flag.svg Unified Team /  CIS (1992)
 Russia (1993–2000)
Sport Wrestling
Event(s) Greco-Roman
Club Dynamo Novosibirsk
Coached by Viktor Kuznetsov[1]

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Karelin (kah-RE-lin, Russian: Александр Александрович Карелин; IPA: [ɐlʲɪkˈsandr ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ kəˈrʲelʲɪn]; born 19 September 1967) is a Russian politician and retired athlete.

Karelin competed in Greco-Roman wrestling, representing the Soviet Union and Russia between 1987 and 2000. Nicknamed the "Russian Bear",[2] "Russian King Kong",[3] "Alexander the Great" and "The Experiment", he is widely considered to be the greatest Greco-Roman wrestler of all time.[1][4][5][6][7][8] Karelin won gold medals at the 1988, 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games under a different flag each time (Soviet Union, Unified Team and Russia respectively), and a silver medal at the 2000 Olympic Games. His wrestling record is 887 wins and two losses, both by a single point.[9][10][11][12] Prior to his farewell match versus Rulon Gardner in September 2000, a point had not been scored on him within the previous six years.[13][14][15] He went undefeated in the world championships, having never lost a match.[15] Karelin was the national flag bearer at three consecutive Olympics: in 1988 for the Soviet Union, in 1992 for the Unified Team, and in 1996 for Russia.

Karelin entered politics in 1999, being elected a deputy of the State Duma that year. He sat in the Duma through various convocations until 2020, when he entered the Federation Council as a senator.

Wrestling career

Karelin was born as a 5.5 kilograms (12 lb) baby.[16] He began training in 1981, under Viktor Kuznetsov, who remained his coach through his entire career.[17][1] Before that he tried boxing, weightlifting, volleyball, basketball, skiing and swimming, excelling in all the sports he tried.[18][19][20][21] Being naturally very big, he came to a wrestling gym, aged 13, standing 179 centimetres (5 ft 10 in) tall and weighing 79 kilograms (174 lb),[22] Karelin grew physically very fast and from 16 years of age throughout his entire career he competed in the super heavyweight division, he went undefeated for the first time from 1982 to 1987 and second time from 1987 to 2000. In 1985 he came to an international competition and won a junior world title.[1] He had his first loss (score 0–1) at the USSR championships in 1987, to the reigning Russian and European champion Igor Rostorotsky; he defeated Rostorotsky at the next USSR championships while recovering from a flu and a recent concussion.[1] He would go on to become a 13-time champion of the USSR, CIS, and Russia from 1988 to 2000.

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"He's been the man for 13 years. Nobody even had a chance to beat him."

Rulon Gardner on his opponent.

In the 1988 Olympic final Karelin came close to losing to Rangel Gerovski, but with 15 seconds left managed to execute his signature Karelin Lift and won.[1] With his win, Karelin became the youngest Greco-Roman wrestler to become an Olympic champion at super heavyweight (130 kg) at the age of 21 years and two days.[23] At the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Karelin faced American Matt Ghaffari for the gold medal. Karelin had come off a shoulder surgery and looked vulnerable against a strong Ghaffari, who was able to repel Karelin's efforts to lift and slam him, forcing Karelin to use all of his skill and experience to defend a 1–0 lead.[24]

After going 13 years undefeated in international competition and six years without giving up a point, he lost 0–1 to Rulon Gardner of the United States in the final of the Sydney Olympics.[25][26][27] His loss in the final of the Sydney Olympics was his first and only international loss, having previously been unbeaten throughout his international career.[28][29] Karelin retired from competitions in 2000.[30]

Training style

Karelin was revered for his extraordinary strength and unprecedented success in international competition. He competed in the heaviest weight class of his day, 130 kg (286 lb). His coach was at first skeptical about a big but undeveloped boy, yet he accepted Karelin and motivated him for hard training, both in wrestling technique and physical strength. As a result, over the years Karelin progressed from 0 to 42 pull-ups.[16][31] His conditioning and quickness combined with his dominance of the sport, led to him being known as "The Experiment". When asked why he thought he was called that (referring to a biased opinion on his alleged PED use), Karelin noted that: "No one can completely believe that I am natural. The most important drug is to train like a madman – really like a madman. The people who accuse me are those who have never trained once in their life like I train every day of my life."[32]

Karelin's daily training drills included hours of rowing and long runs through Taiga forest often with a large log on his back.[33][34][35] He favored the overhead press and also used standard 2-pood kettlebells (32 kilograms (71 lb)) for arm exercises at a daily weight routine. He is said to have clean and pressed 190 kilograms (420 lb).[34] Karelin would reportedly do 10 reps of 200 kilograms (440 lb) of Zercher deadlifts.[36] He would routinely bench press 204 kilograms (450 lb) as part of his workout.[37] According to Tuomo Karila, a Finnish wrestler, while following Karelin's training routine, he observed that Karelin was able to do around 50 chin-ups within a minute.[38] Despite his large physique, he was flexible and agile enough to do backflips and splits.[20][39] When asked about his toughest opponent, Karelin instantly replied: "My refrigerator," referring to one of his drills, for which he bear hugged his refrigerator and carried it up through eight flights of stairs of his hometown 9-storied apartment building.[40][13][41][42][43] Karelin also took part in a strongman competition, that being the 1991 European Hercules, placing 8th.[44][45]

Wrestling style

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"He didn't just dominate the world of Greco-Roman wrestling, for 13 years, he terrified the world of Greco-Roman wrestling!"

—Philip Hersh, an Olympic sports writer, on Karelin's legacy.[22]

Karelin was famous for his reverse body lift, the Karelin Lift, where facing the opponent who was lying flat on the mat to keep from being thrown, Karelin hoisted his opponents into the air and slammed them violently to the mat. This devastatingly effective maneuver, when properly executed, awarded Karelin 5 points per throw, the maximum awarded in Greco-Roman wrestling. The throw had long been in use by lighter wrestlers but not by heavyweights – because of the immense strength required to raise, spin and hit the mat with a 560+ lbs combined weight of both athletes (280+ of which resist desperately to the performed maneuver). Karelin's ability to perform this throw against elite opponents weighing as much as 130 kg amazed other participants and observers of the sport.[31][46] His exceptionally long reach, with measurements between 213 centimetres (84 in)[20] and 220 centimetres (87 in),[38][47][48] helped him to grip his opponent's bodies.[20][39]

Injuries

Like most top wrestlers, Karelin had a number of severe injuries through his career. He credits his fast recoveries to Valery Okhapkin, physician of the national wrestling team, and claims that Okhapkin extended his competition lifetime by several years.[1]

At the age of 15 Karelin broke his leg while training; having learned about this accident his mother burned his wrestling uniform and forbade him to wrestle. Since then he broke his arms twice and ribs thirteen times. Around January 1988 he had a serious concussion, and doctors considered removing him from the 1988 Olympic team. Karelin won the 1993 World Championships despite breaking two ribs in the opening bout against Matt Ghaffari. At the 1996 European Championships in Budapest, he had torn the right pectoralis major muscle so badly that doctors predicted he would not be able to use his right hand for several months. Karelin won the Championships, but had to be urgently operated on in Budapest. He recovered within three months to compete at the 1996 Olympics.[1] As many other wrestlers, Karelin has a bit tongue (which was and still is a very frequent wrestling injury before the advent of contemporary chin-tight wrestling headgear), which affects his pronunciation and speech, limiting r-containing words usage. And as many other wrestlers he has multiple ear cartilage injuries of both ears.

International competition record

Res. Opponent Method Time/
Score
Date Event Location
2000 Olympic Silver Medalist at 130kg
Loss United States Rulon Gardner Decision 0–1 2000-09-25 2000 Olympic Games Australia Sydney
Win Belarus Dmitry Debelka Decision 3–0 2000-09-25
Win Ukraine Georgiy Saldadze Decision 4–0 2000-09-25
Win Hungary Mihály Deák-Bárdos Decision 3–0 2000-09-25
Win Bulgaria Sergei Mureiko Decision 3–0 2000-09-25
1999 World Champion at 130kg
Win Cuba Héctor Milián Decision 3–0 1999-09-23 1999 World Wrestling Championships Greece Athens
Win Bulgaria Sergei Mureiko Decision 0–0 1999-09-23
Win Ukraine Georgiy Saldadze Decision 3–0 1999-09-23
Win Sweden Eddy Bengtsson Tech Fall 1999-09-23
Win Italy Giuseppe Giunta Tech Fall 1999-09-23
Win Lithuania Mindaugas Mizgaitis Tech Fall 1999-09-23
1998 World Champion at 130kg
Win United States Matt Ghaffari Decision 8–0 1998-08-27 1998 World Wrestling Championships Sweden Gävle
Win Ukraine Georgiy Saldadze Decision 4–0 1998-08-27
Win Israel Yuri Evseichik Decision 8–0 1998-08-27
Win Finland Juha Ahokas Fall 1998-08-27
1997 World Champion at 130kg
Win Hungary Mihály Deák-Bárdos Decision 11–0 1997-09-10 1997 World Wrestling Championships Poland Wroclaw
Win United States Rulon Gardner Decision 6–0 1997-09-10
Win Bulgaria Sergei Mureiko Decision 2–0 1997-09-10
Win South Korea Young-Jin Yang Decision 6–0 1997-09-10
1996 Olympic Gold Medalist at 130kg
Win United States Matt Ghaffari Decision 1–0 1996-07-22 1996 Olympic Games United States Atlanta, Georgia
Win Greece Panagiotis Poikilidis Fall 1996-07-21
Win Finland Juha Ahokas Fall 1996-07-21
Win Moldova Sergei Mureiko Decision 2–0 1996-07-21
Win Tunisia Omrane Ayari Decision 10–0 1996-07-21
1992 Olympic Gold Medalist at 130kg
Win Sweden Tomas Johansson Fall 1992-07-29 1992 Olympic Games Spain Barcelona
Win Romania Ioan Grigoraş Fall 1992-07-27
Win Finland Juha Ahokas Decision 8–1 1992-07-27
Win Cuba Cándido Mesa Fall 1992-07-27
Win Canada Andy Borodow Fall 1992-07-27
1989 World Champion at 130kg
Win Hungary László Klaus Decision 7–0 1989-08-26 1989 World Wrestling Championships Switzerland Martigny
Win United States Craig Pittman Fall 3:16 1989-08-24
1988 Olympic Gold Medalist at 130kg
Win Bulgaria Rangel Gerovski Decision 5–3 1988-09-22 1988 Olympic Games South Korea Seoul
Win United States Duane Koslowski Tech Fall 1988-09-20
Win Austria Alexander Neumüller Fall 1988-09-20
Win Hungary László Klauz Passivity 1988-09-20
Win Sweden Tomas Johansson Decision 5–0 1988-09-20
1987 World Cup Winner at 130kg
Win United States Jeff Blatnick DQ 13–0 1987-10-15 1987 Wrestling World Cup United States Albany, New York
Win Norway Walkover 1987-10-15
Win Cuba Juan Poulot Fall 1:26 1987-10-14
Win Japan Kenichi Mikosawa 1987-10-14

Mixed martial arts

On 21 February 1999 Karelin defeated Akira Maeda in a shoot wrestling contest put on by RINGS that drew a gate of over $1 million. The match gained widespread media coverage, including mentions in The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.[49] The match took place in the Maeda-owned professional wrestling organization RINGS. Though widely considered to have been a shoot style wrestling contest, the match is counted as an official mixed martial arts (MMA) match in Sherdog's record database.[50]

Res. Record Opponent Method Event Date Round Time Location Notes
Win 1–0 Akira Maeda Decision (Unanimous) Rings: Final Capture February 21, 1999 3 5:00 Japan

Political career

File:Aleksandr Karelin 2018.jpg
Karelin as a deputy of the State Duma in 2018

Between 1995 and 1999 Karelin served with the Russian tax police and retired in the rank of colonel.[1] Upon invitation from Vladimir Putin, in 1999 he began his political career. He joined the United Russia party and was elected to the State Duma as a representative of Novosibirsk Oblast in 1999 and 2003. In 2007 he was elected to the Duma as a representative of Stavropol Krai. He was a member of Duma's committee on international affairs.[51] In 2017, he entered the PutinTeam, a social movement aimed at promoting Vladimir Putin's policies.

In 2020 Karelin was appointed as senator from the Legislative Assembly of Novosibirsk Oblast in the Federation Council. He took up the post on 25 September 2020, and is a member of the council's committee on International Affairs.[52]

Personal life

Karelin graduated from the Novosibirsk Institute of Transportation in 1985, followed by the Siberian Academy of Physical Culture, a military school of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD USSR) and the Saint Petersburg University of MVD USSR. In 1998 he defended a PhD and in 2002 a habilitation in sport-related pedagogy; he also holds a degree in law. His PhD is titled: "Methods of execution of suplex throw counters" (Russian: Методика проведения контрприемов от бросков прогибом), and "Integral training system for top-level wrestlers" (Russian: Система интегральной подготовки высококвалифицированных борцов).[53]

Karelin's father was a truck driver and an amateur boxer.[1] Karelin is married to Olga, they have two sons, Denis and Ivan, and one daughter, Vasilisa.[1] Denis (born c. 1986) tried wrestling, but changed it for car racing.[54] Ivan (born 1994) is coached by Kuznetsov and competes in the Greco-Roman superheavyweight division.[55] Vasilisa (born c. 1999) is a rhythmic gymnast.[56]

Karelin is an Orthodox Christian.[57][58]

While serving in the Internal Troops, he competed in sambo, and became a sambo champion.[59][60][61]

Legacy and awards

Karelin was named as the greatest Greco-Roman wrestler of the 20th century by the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA) and one of the class of ten inaugural inductees into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003. He was also included in the 25 best world athletes of the 20th century.[53] Since 1992, an annual wrestling competition is held in Novosibirsk in his honor.[1][51]

Karelin was named a Hero of the Russian Federation in 1997 and awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples (1989), Order of Honour (2001) and Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" IV class (2008).[1] He was awarded the Serbian Order of Saint Sava.[62][63] In 2017, he was awarded the Order "For Merit to the Republic of Dagestan".[64] He was also named a Merited Master of Sports of the USSR (1988).[65][66]

He is a hidden playable character in the Japan-only, AKI Corporation-created, Nintendo 64 video game: Virtual Pro Wrestling 2.[67]

Notes

  1. Sources vary on his height, with some listing him as 6 ft 4 in (193 cm)

References

  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 Карелин Александр Александрович Archived 31 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Russian Wrestling Federation
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  10. "Alexander Karelin" in The World's Five Greatest Athletes No One Knows Archived 29 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine. drjudd.ne
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  12. He lost to Rulon Gardner in 2000 (1–0) due to a sudden rule change and Gardner's sheer size and weight, as Gardner was too heavy for Karelin to launch a reverse body lift.
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  16. 16.0 16.1 Александр Карелин: Борьба – это условие жизни Archived 8 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine. karelin.ru. 25 October 2013. The 6.8 kg figure reported by the Time journal was an exaggeration КАРЕЛИН Александр Александрович Archived 8 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine. biograph.ru
  17. Kareline, Alexandre (RUS) Archived 19 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine. iat.uni-leipzig.de
  18. Александр Карелин – гордость нашего спорта, колоритная личность, великий спортсмен, который и в 46 лет держит себя в великолепной форме! Поговорим о секретах успеха русского богатыря Archived 14 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine. fizvosp.ru. 21 March 2014.
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  22. 22.0 22.1 Karelin: Legends Live On Archived 6 December 2019 at the Wayback Machine (Documentary). Olympic Channel, 5 April 2018.
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  24. Jack McCallum (27 September 2000) Unheralded American slays Russian wrestling legend. Sports Illustrated.
  25. The Sporting News, Miracle on the mat – wrestler Rulon Gardner wins the gold medal in the Olympics, 9 October 2000
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  30. Alexander Karelin – Chronology. sports.jrank.org
  31. 31.0 31.1 Dawidoff, Nicholas (13 May 1991) A Bruiser and a Thinker: Soviet Greco-Roman wrestler Alexander Karelin is a rare combination of massive physique and imposing intellect. Sports Illustrated
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  41. Aleksandr Karelin - Train Like a Madman by Josh Bryant, 2 August 2017.
  42. Идеальный олимпийский Франкенштейн - Runners' Club Archived 13 January 2020 at the Wayback Machine (in Russian) 24 August 2016.
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  53. 53.0 53.1 Karelin, Alexander Alexandrovich Archived 31 March 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Karelin.ru.
  54. Yekaterina Olkhovskaya (31 October 2008) Денис КАРЕЛИН: «Мой девиз – быть сильным, слабым не везет!» Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine Komsomolskaya Pravda
  55. Карелин Иван Александрович Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. wrestrus.ru
  56. Олимпийский чемпион Карелин высоко оценил новый Дворец единоборств в Пензе Archived 10 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine. Vesti.ru. 23 March 2015
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External links

Olympic Games
Preceded by Flagbearer for  Soviet Union / Olympic flag.svg Unified Team /  Russia
Seoul 1988
Barcelona 1992
Atlanta 1996
Succeeded by
Andrey Lavrov