ESPN's Top 100 Moments of past 25 years

[Vern Gagne 0]

Speaking of which, Bob Beamon's super-jump has got to make that list somewhere.

Umm, that was in 1968.

 

Keri Strug winning the gold medal for the Women's Gymnastics team, and Greg Louganias hitting his head, and than winning the gold medal will make the list for olympic moments. Oh, and the Dream Team will make the list has well.

[nl5xsk1 0]

Then why did so many americans go see the movie if we hate hockey so fucking much then?

Well I know people would be let down by hockey getting #1. And I'm a hockey fan. I think it should be, I'm just skeptical of its acceptance from everyone else.

 

And besides. It's ESPN. #1 is gonna be Jordan or Bonds, not Neal Broten.

Miracle on Ice should be #1, but will barely scrape into the top 5 ... Jordan doing something will be number 1; McGuire hitting home runs and Tyson losing to Douglas will both be higher as well.

 

I don't think that more than 5 or so hockey highlights will make the cut. The only hockey things that I can see making it are: Miracle on Ice, Gretzky's 50 goals in 39 games, Bourque winning the Cup (maybe) the Bertuzzi incident, Messier guaranteeing the win vs. NJ, Gretzky getting traded to LA ... and that's all that come to mind right now.

[Guest Redhawk]

More people remember the "Super Bowl Shuffle" video than Fridge's first TD. Who the hell picked that one to go in the Top 100? Just off the top of my head, Shawn Kemp reverse-dunking on Rodman's head in the 1996 Finals was more memorable than that.

 

Anyway, Tonya Harding vs. Nancy Kerrigan will be in the Top 50 at least, Carl Lewis winning the long jump gold in his last Olympics will be in there somewhere, and I bet Christian Laettner's shot against Kentucky makes the Top 15. And I have this sneaking suspicion that SausageGate will pop up somewhere.

[Gert T 0]

It is weird speculating since, the Twins-Braves were so realatively low.

 

Where do you guys think Lance Armstrong's 5-peat will go, Top 15?

 

Will Korey Stringer death make the list by itself, or grouped together with the other heat related deaths that year?

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

 

Speaking of which, Bob Beamon's super-jump has got to make that list somewhere.

Umm, that was in 1968.

 

Keri Strug winning the gold medal for the Women's Gymnastics team, and Greg Louganias hitting his head, and than winning the gold medal will make the list for olympic moments. Oh, and the Dream Team will make the list has well.

Oh sorry, I forgot about the 25 years thing.

[Guest Anglesault]

The list will be extremly slanted towards the East coast. Just like everything ESPN does.

Because all the important things happen here.

 

I haven't watched ESPN seriously in a while.

 

What's their current "top sport" that they'll pimp mercilessly?

[Guest Anglesault]

Earnhardt's Death will get a spot...

I actually remember that day.

 

I was my dad's birthday, and I was just getting ready to head over to their house when I got the hysterical phone call from an ex-girlfrend (who was a really good friend of mine even afterwards)

 

It's hard to spend half an hour comforting someone when you don't give a shit.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Earnhardt's death has to be at least Top 25. I mean, the entire South was in mourning for days afterward. Here alone, churches were holding services.

[Bored 0]

#93: Baseball retires Jackie Robinson's No. 42

Rick Weinberg

Special to ESPN.com

 

They came, by the tens of thousands, to honor one of history's greatest, most dignified and strong-minded individuals.

 

They filed in, one after another, to stage a tribute to a special, courageous man who endured a living nightmare, day in and day out, just so others like him could get a chance, an opportunity, to play the game that America so embraced.

 

Jackie Robinson. The name has an extraordinary sound, a special meaning to it. Jackie Roosevelt Robinson. When you hear the name, you can feel the warmth of the man, and you can hear his soft, kind voice, and you can see his eyes of honesty and sincerity, because you've seen him and heard him on video, and you just know he's just the type of person you'd be proud to emulate.

 

You can also feel his pain. You detest the thought of what he endured, how senseless it all was, how ignorant society was, and still is too often. But Jackie Robinson stood up to them all -- a proud, intelligent man of dignity who became a symbol for all that is right and fair.

 

THE MOMENT

It is April 15, 1997 -- 50 years to the day Jackie Robinson played his first major-league game at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Fifty years to the day Jackie Robinson helped change and revolutionize his sport; there was a special ceremony at Shea Stadium in New York.

 

They halted the game exactly halfway through the contest between the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers, at 9:22 p.m., in the fifth inning before a crowd of nearly 40,000.

 

Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig walks to a microphone set up behind second base, where Jackie made so many of his graceful, wonderful plays. Selig is followed by Jackie Robinson's wife, Rachel, and their grandson, Jesse Simms, a student-athlete at UCLA, where Jackie Robinson first became known for his athletic brilliance. Closely behind is the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, as well as Sharon Robinson, Jackie's daughter, and then Branch Rickey III, the grandson of Branch Rickey, the former Dodgers executvie who signed Robinson and guided him toward his landmark big-league debut against the Boston Braves.

 

Recording artist Tevin Campbell sings "The Impossible Dream" as highlights of Robinson's career flash on the stadium's video screen. Then, when the film ends, with Jackie crossing home plate after a home run, and being greeted joyously by one of his white Dodger teammates, Selig moves toward the microphone and says, "No single person is bigger than the game. No single person other than Jackie Robinson."

 

Then Selig holds up Jackie's Dodgers uniform jersey, with the number 42 on its back, and proclaims, "No. 42 belongs to Jackie Robinson for the ages." Then he goes on to make a surprising announcement: that baseball will do something unprecedented in sports -- bar all teams from issuing No. 42 in the future as a tribute to Robinson. "Number 42, from this day forward," he says, "will never again be issued by a major-league club."

 

Clinton takes the microphone next. "Today," he says, "every American should give special thanks to Jackie Robinson, to Branch Rickey and to all of Jackie's teammates with the Dodgers for what they did. This is a better, stronger and richer country when we all work together and give everybody a chance."

 

Clinton pauses for a moment, allowing the crowd to absorb the impact of his statement, then rekindles the memory of Robinson's major-league debut by saying, "He scored the go-ahead run that first day in the major leagues, and we've been trying to catch up with him ever since."

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Ok, now its full of shit. I'm a hardcore baseball fanatic. I don't really remember MLB's mass retirement of Jackie's number. It certainly does not overshadow actual CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Eh well at least it's only at 93rd on the list. I'm not sure I even favor the mass retirement. The Dodgers and Mets should, by all means, but it's hard to make a case for the Rockies or Devil Rays following suit.

[Guest Choken One]

Fuck...I say it's the LEAST they should do for the guy.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I don't object to it making the list, but not ahead of championship games.

[Red Baron 0]

Somewhere along the lines where America beats Canada in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Hockey, and the 1996 World Cup of Hockey as well.

Uhh, Canada beat the USA in 1998, and didn't play them in the medal round. The Czech Republic eliminated the USA that year.

 

The Czech Republic's win in those Olympics was probably the most compelling story of any major international hockey tournament in the last decade or so.

USA defeated Canada for the gold medal in the Woman Final that year, the first time ever USA defeated Canada too

[JustJoe2k5 0]

Didn't Wayne Gretzky break the scoring record in an overtime game-winner? If so, that'll probably be in the middle of the list. Miracle on Ice will probably be a top ten or top five pick. Lance Armstrong's five Tour de France victories will make it pretty high. Dale Earnhardt Jr. winning the Daytona 500, although not really covered as a big moment, may make it in the 80s or something.

[Bored 0]

#92: Heiden destroys competition at '80 Olympics

Rick Weinberg

Special to ESPN.com

 

First Eric Heiden won the 500-meter race. Then the 1,000. Then, astonishingly, the 1,500. Then, in a scene that was becoming quite ridiculous, he won the 5,000. Then, to absolutely numb the athletic world, he not only won the 10,000, but did so while smashing the world record. He did this all in one stirring, unforgettable 10-day span in winter world competition.

 

The lasting memory of the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. is of the United States men's hockey team beating the Soviet Union and Finland to win the gold medal and entertaining the universe with three of the wildest and most emotional celebrations in sports history.

 

But it was one Eric Heiden, a quiet, humble and modest speed skater from Madison, Wisconsin, who rewrote history by becoming the first athlete in Winter Olympics history to win five individual gold medals.

 

THE MOMENT

It's Saturday, February 23, 1980, the next-to-last day of the Olympic competition. The streets in and around Lake Placid are swarming with people, clad in parkas, mittens and woolen scarves. Most of them are on their way to the speed skating oval to watch Heiden's attempt to reach the pinnacle of Olympic history.

 

The thousands of fans who can't get into the oval are peering over fences, leaning over balconies of restaurants, and climbing in trees as Heiden, 21, skates to the starting line for one of the most unforgettable 14½-minute moments in sports history.

 

Heiden is matched in the second pair against the Soviet Union's Viktor Leskin, the current world record-holder at 10,000 meters. Norway's Tom Erik Oxholm, skating in the first pair, clocks a 14:36.60. Heiden knows that is what he has to beat to win his fifth gold medal.

 

"After seeing Oxholm skate, I was scared," Heiden would say later. At the same time, he's more pumped up than he can ever remember. The race begins. After the first five laps of the 25-lap race, Heiden and Keskin are side by side, a pair of blurs shadowing each other. At the halfway mark, Heiden, garbed in the U.S. team's flashy gold skating suit, takes the lead -- for good.

 

The public address announcer enthusiastically informs the crowd that Heiden is two seconds ahead of Oxholm's pace. The crowd begins to rise. Slowly, the chant begins: "Eric! Eric! Eric!" With 10 laps to go, Heiden is 3.5 seconds faster than Oxholm's pace. With seven laps left, he's 5.5 seconds faster. The crowd stomps its feet and wildly shakes cowbells. With four laps to go, the PA announcer is out of control, telling the crowd that Heiden is an astounding seven seconds faster than Oxholm. The crowd howls, "Eric! Eric! Eric!"

 

As Heiden skates into the last lap, a thoroughbred on ice, he's blowing away Leskin, having built a three-quarters of a lap lead. The scene inside and outside the oval is pure hysteria. As Heiden blazes across the finish line, there's a moment of silence and stunned awe as the time of 14:28.13 freezes on the scoreboard. Seconds later, a burst of uncontrolled euphoria erupts, gradually getting louder and louder as Heiden slowly and magically skates around the oval to acknowledge the crowd. His time is 6.2 seconds faster than the world mark set in 1977 by Victor Loshkin of the Soviet Union.

 

When former Olympic champion Piet Kleine of The Netherlands finishes in the sixth pair at 14:36.03, Heiden wins the gold -- again. His fifth of the Games, an astounding performance indeed, especially considering this: U.S. speed skaters, in the previous 56 years of Winter Olympic competition, had won a total of 11 gold medals -- and Heiden winds up winning five in 10 days, showing that no one, at any distance in the world, is his equal. Not even close.

 

When the Games end, when the quaint upstate New York town of Lake Placid returns to quiet normalcy, Heiden would say the five golds are not a big deal, that "they'll probably sit in my mom's dresser, collecting dust." He is a throwback to a time when athletes downplayed their dominance, their brilliant performances. Gloating is not part of Heiden's persona. Amazingly, he retires after the Winter Games, shunning the celebrity spotlight, saying, "I liked it when I was a nobody."

[Slayer 0]

...how long is this shit gonna go on for?

[Bored 0]

Since they reveal one a day...you do the math.

[Slayer 0]

Since they reveal one a day...you do the math.

...too much thought process

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(didn't know how often they were revealing this list, thanks)

[Guest Redhawk]

I think the Douglas-Tyson upset will be in the Top 25, and the Tyson-Holyfield ear bite could possibly make the list, unless they're going for only the "good" moments.

 

And off-topic, Slayer, but I saw your sig and thought, "A-Train, Mark Wahlberg, some guy and Edge." What band is that?

[Damaramu 0]

The then and now was pretty good. I liked the highlight package that showed all the great teams, moments, and tragedies of the past 25 years.

I may be a little bias towards the package since they showed my Sooners winning the national title in 2000......but it was still a good package.

I even got a little choked during the tragedies part. From Magic announcing he can't play anymore to Dale Earnhardt.

[Red Baron 0]

I think the Douglas-Tyson upset will be in the Top 25, and the Tyson-Holyfield ear bite could possibly make the list, unless they're going for only the "good" moments.

 

And off-topic, Slayer, but I saw your sig and thought, "A-Train, Mark Wahlberg, some guy and Edge." What band is that?

Slayer.

 

 

check them out

[Bored 0]

#91: Jordan, age 30, retires for the first time

Rick Weinberg

Special to ESPN.com

 

In October 1993, Michael Jordan, at the age of 30, had won three straight NBA titles, three straight NBA Finals MVP awards and seven straight NBA scoring titles.

 

THE MOMENT

It's the kind of announcement that induces networks to halt regular programming, the kind of proclamation that results in hundreds of media members to fly to across the country the same morning, the kind of announcement that has the world buzzing from New York to London to Japan.

 

It's October 5, 1993. The shocking words cross the wire: "Michael Jordan will announce that he is retiring tomorrow at a press conference in Deerfield, Ill."

 

It is not the first such retirement: Rocky Marciano retired at the age of 32 as undefeated heavyweight boxing champ with a 49-0 record. Sandy Koufax retired at 30 after compiling a 27-6 season in 1966 with the Dodgers. Bjorn Borg quit at 25 with 11 major titles. Jim Brown's retirement, considering he had just led the NFL in rushing and TDs at the age of 29, surprised the football world. And just two years earlier, Magic Johnson had stunned the basketball fans everywhere when retired after contracting HIV.

 

As the Jordan news comes, you think, this can't be real. It's got to be some kind of cruel joke. But this is no joke. This is serious. It is surreal. Too surreal to comprehend. After all, how could the world's greatest basketball player, the greatest player in the history of the game, walk away in his prime? Sure, his father had been tragically murdered just a few months earlier, and he was fed up with the media coverage of his gambling exploits. But retire? Why? It doesn't make sense. No sense whatsoever.

 

Scottie Pippen, Jordan's sidekick, the guy who ran for years in Jordan's shadow as the Bulls were turning the NBA upside down en route to three straight NBA crowns, is at his home watching a White Sox-Blue Jays playoff game when he hears his friend is retiring.

 

"I couldn't believe my ears," Pippen later tells the media. He calls Jordan. "It's true," MJ tells him. "I'm gone." Pippen tries desperately to talk him out of it. There's no way. Jordan says he has no choice but to step away, that it's time to move on.

 

The next morning, as Jordan makes his announcement on this surreal Midwest day, Pippen's teary eyes are hidden by black, wire-rimmed glasses. "When Michael spoke," Pippen says later, "it took the spirit out of me. It ripped my heart out."

 

Sadness and gloom filled the room as a city, a nation, and a league mourns. The impact on the NBA, television, attendance, competition, revenue, merchandise sales (other than MJ's jersey, of course) is staggering. The man who generates billions for others is now going to cost them millions. There is no aspect of the league that Jordan's presence doesn't touch.

 

As the world watches in disbelief, Jordan calmly explains his reasoning, without any sadness in his voice, without any tears. He actually smiles. He actually proves his decision is one of relief, despite retiring at the height of his power.

 

"I've reached the pinnacle," he tells the world. "I always said to the people that have known me that when I lose that sense of motivation and that sense that I can prove something, it's time for me to leave."

 

He pauses. He looks out at the crowd of reporters. He looks down. "It was just a matter of waiting until this time, when basketball was near, to see if my heart ticked for it," he says. "I went through all the different stages of getting myself prepared for the next year, but the desire ... was not there."

[DangerousDamon 0]

what was the "real" reason for Jordan's retirement. I know one theory is that he just couldn't get over his dad's murder. Is that true

[nl5xsk1 0]

I'd always heard that Jordan retired because it'd been found out that he was a big gambler, and had bet on basketball (or something similar) and thus the league was going to have to punish/reprimand him, or look like hypocrites. And since MJ was the golden child, and it'd look bad for their poster boy to be carousing with criminals, the league allowed him to retire rather than face the consequences. Once the heat blew over, he was able to come back to the league without a problem.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

I heard that rumor, too. The other, more controversial rumor, is that his dad's murder was somehow tied to Jordan's supposed gambling losses. I tend to believe the first rumor, but the other I would dismiss.

 

And the Miracle on Ice has to be top 5, or the list is a joke. It should definitely be #1, considering the actual feat & the climate in the world/America at the time.

[Bored 0]

#90: Reggie Miller scores 8 points in 11 seconds

Rick Weinberg

Special to ESPN.com

 

The game, for all intent and purpose, was over. The New York Knicks had a 105-99 lead with 18.7 seconds left in Game 1 of the 1995 Eastern Conference semifinals against their hated rivals, Reggie Miller and the Indiana Pacers.

 

There is chuckling in the Madison Square Garden stands, as well as on the Knicks' bench. Thoughts turn to Game 2 because Game 1 is over.

 

So it seems.

 

THE MOMENT

In what many sports writers consider the most spectacular nine-second, game-ending scoring run in history -- as well as one of the most horrific end-of-the-game collapses -- Reggie Miller hits a 3-point shot with 16.4 seconds left, immediately steals the ensuing inbounds pass and quickly dashes out to the 3-point line and drains another three to tie the game at 105 with 13.3 seconds left -- all this in a dizzying, mind-spinning span of 3.1 seconds on May 7, 1995.

 

"We were shell-shocked," says Anthony Mason, the former Knick, years later. "We went numb after his second three. We became totally disoriented. It was like a terrible nightmare that you couldn't wake up from. I still think about it today. I can laugh about it now. I wasn't laughing then, that's for sure."

 

After Miller's second 3-pointer, the Knicks' John Starks is fouled on the ensuing possession, but he shockingly misses both free throws. The Knicks' nightmare appears to end when the rebound of the second miss is grabbed by Knicks center Patrick Ewing, but he promptly clanks a 10-footer. Then Miller, of all people, grabs the rebound and is fouled, leaving the Knicks and Madison Square Garden in stunned disbelief.

 

Miller begins taunting celebrated front-row Knicks fan Spike Lee and everyone else in The Garden. Then he makes two free throws with 7.5 seconds left, giving Indiana the lead, 107-105. The completion of the Knicks' comedic and embarrassing collapse ends in laughable agony when guard Greg Anthony falls down while driving to the hoop in the final second, setting off a wild Pacers' celebration.

 

Miller, in one of the most blatant acts of trash talking in history, proclaims on national TV that the Pacers -- who had been eliminated from the playoffs the previous two seasons by the Knicks -- would now likely sweep the Knicks. He then dashes inside the tunnel to the Indiana locker room, shouting, "Choke artists! Choke artists!" -- a phrase that was splashed across the sports pages of the New York tabloids the following morning.

 

Only Miller, the King of Clutch, the King of Bravado, the guy who had stunned the Knicks the previous year with a 25-point, fourth-quarter explosion in a Game 5 conference finals victory, could get the Knicks crowd in such a frenzy. "The Knicks, New York, and Madison Square Garden," Miller says today, "bring out the best in me. Always has. It lights a fire inside of me. There's nothing I want more than to beat them on their stage, to steal their show. I got great enjoyment from it."

 

What's so remarkable about Miller's astonishing eight-point, nine-second sequence is the moment after the steal of the inbounds pass. "What shocked me was that Reggie had the presence of mind to not take a quick two-point shot and instead took one dribble and got back behind the 3-point line to shoot a three," Larry Brown, the ex-Pacers coach, would say years later. "That takes an amazing athlete to do that, a guy who literally has ice in his veins, a guy who loves the pressure and is willing to face the consequences if he doesn't make the shot."

 

Just why did Miller pass up the easy two and instead dribble out past the 3-point stripe to launch another three? Miller would smile and say, "I wanted to drive a stake through their heart."

 

He did just that. The ramifications of Miller's shot had a numbing impact on the Knicks' franchise for several years thereafter:

 

1) The Knicks-Pacers series goes seven games, and Indiana winds up winning as Ewing -- again -- misses the pivotal shot, this time a driving layup that would have tied the game in the waning seconds. 2) Knicks head coach Pat Riley, devastated by the Game 1 and Game 7 defeats to Indiana, resigns. He is replaced by Don Nelson, who doesn't even last a full season, despite having a multi-year contract. The series of events leaves the Knicks in disarray.

 

Meanwhile, Miller solidifies his reputation as one of history's most feared long-range shooters, a guy who launches it from 30 feet without hesitation. As the 10-year anniversary of Miller's dazzling performance rapidly approaches, Brown says, "I've still never seen anything like it."

[Black Lushus 0]

as a Knick fan, i refuse to commit...i'm sure Pacer Fan (you know who you are ) will have something to say though!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miller clobbered Anthony to get the ball back, I swear to god!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

but, Ewing missing that fingeroll was unforgivable...

[Bored 0]

#89: Rulon Gardner stops invincible Karelin

Rick Weinberg

Special to ESPN.com

 

He was unbeatable. He had never lost in 15 years of international competition. He had won three consecutive Olympic gold medals and seven consecutive world titles.

 

Russian wrestler Alexander Karelin had not even yielded a point over a 10-year span heading into the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. Everyone called him Alexander The Great. He once carried a refrigerator up seven flights of stairs -- by himself. He was universally feared, universally admired. He once won a match after suffering a broken rib and said afterward, "I did not want to stop fighting for something as dainty as a broken rib."

 

Wide at the shoulders and narrow at the hips, Karelin was a glowering mountain of a man, a terrifying 286-pound Greek statue. So when he stepped in to face American Rulon Gardner, a farm boy who grew up as the youngest of nine on a dairy farm in Afton, Wyo., population 1,400, and whose best previous finish in international competition had been fifth, no one was prepared for what was about to transpire.

 

THE MOMENT

September 27, 2000. The gold medal match in Greco-Roman super heavyweight at The Sydney Exhibition Centre.

 

Karelin tries throwing Gardner repeatedly in the first three minutes of the Olympic showdown, but he is unsuccessful, as Gardner stays chest-to-chest, shoulder-to-shoulder, never allowing Karelin to get leverage or a chance to toss him for points. Over and over, Karelin tries to hoist Gardner, but Gardner squirms or battles free.

 

Neither wrestler is able to gain an advantage or score a point in the first three-minute round. The rules, in this situation, dictate that a coin toss determines who chooses his preferred position at the start of the second round.

 

The toss is won by the sleek, trim, bald and menacing Karelin, who immediately locks onto Gardner. But Gardner, who never even captured a NCAA title while wrestling at the University of Nebraska, locks right back.

 

After 30 seconds of grappling and yanking and pulling, Gardner keeps his hands clinched and Karelin's slips apart. Gasps are heard from the crowd as Gardner receives a point -- the first point Karelin has yielded in 15 years. The score is so subtle, so unbelievable, that judges actually need to confirm it via videotape.

 

"He had a great lock on me, and another three or four inches I would have let it slip," Gardner would admit later. "But I always wrestle kind of unorthodox, and our feet got tangled and I got under him. Maybe it confused him. But I got the point."

 

There is, however, the rest of the second round to get through and then a three-minute overtime because a wrestler has to score three points to win in regular time. With each passing moment, as Gardner withstands Karelin's withering attacks, head slaps and attempts to pick him up and bulldoze him, Gardner grows more confident, more aggressive.

 

Gardner nows Karelin may be tired from two matches earlier in the day, and thinks, "He's got to be feeling it in his legs . . . and his lungs might be burning, too." Gardner is fresher, having wrestled just once the same day, earning a semifinal overtime victory over Juri Yevseychyc of Israel.

 

For a brief moment, Gardner thinks about the only other time he had faced Karelin -- three years earlier. He lost 5-0. Karelin had thrown Gardner on his face three times, slamming him to the ground each time. Once, Karelin lifted him and flipped him feet-first over his head. Then he landed his 290-pound body on Gardner's neck. "The second time he slammed me, my feet almost hit my back," Gardner would later say. "It's like wrestling a horse; he's that strong. He can suffocate you."

 

Gardner's wife, Stacy, fears for her husband's safety in the match with Karelin, admitting, "I hear he's paralyzed people before."

 

But this is a different day, a different moment in time. Gardner feels so calm -- calmer than he has at any time ever before in his life. "I don't think I've ever been so ready to wrestle," he later said.

 

Overtime begins. Everyone in wrestling knows a reverse lift is Karelin's trademark move, and everyone is bracing for it. But he is unable to execute it against Gardner, who has surprising speed for a man with a 54-inch chest. "I knew I was strong enough and quick enough to stop his lift," Gardner would say.

 

Still trailing by one point, Karelin starts grabbing the sides of Gardner's face, clawing at him, as if he's trying to rip off his opponents' head. Gardner keeps flashing back to lessons he learned as a farm boy, building his muscle the old-fashioned way, by bailing hay and carrying pails of milk to feed cows on his family's 160-acre dairy farm. "When you work the farm," he would say, "you never stop to take a break."

 

Chants of "USA! USA!" resound throughout the arena. Then, with five seconds left in the overtime period, Karelin rises from the mat and takes a step back, and, as the arena goes silent, not knowing what is happening, he shockingly concedes the match. The arena explodes with a roar; everyone realizes they are witnessing one of the greatest upsets not only in wrestling history, but in Olympic history and sports history as well.

 

Gardner, unable to control his emotions, screams and turns a cartwheel, raises his arm in triumph and then does a somersault. He spots an American flag in the crowd, races over, grabs it and runs a victory lap.

 

"To be realistic, I didn't think I could actually beat him," the 29-year-old Gardner would tell the media. "The gold medal was so far away from what I thought I could do in my life. You say, 'Yeah, I can beat him.' But so many people in so many hundreds of matches have thought that, then they go out and he basically crushes them."

 

But on this night, it's Gardner who crushes the mystique, the legacy, the one-man dynasty.

[nl5xsk1 0]

While Olympic wrestling is pretty unimportant to most of the world, I really think that Gardner beating Karelin should have been much higher. Now, I'm not talking top 10 or anything like that, but the man hadn't lost in over a decade. That's a-freaking-mazing. But, yet it's barely a better moment than Clemens throwing a bat.

 

Nice work yet again, ESPN.