Head and Shoulders Aleksandr Karelin of russia proved he's in a class by himself by winning his third wrestling gold medal by Peter King Outside the doping control station at the Georgia World Congress Center last night, one of the greatest Greco-Roman wrestlers of our time slumped in a chair—elbows on knees, eyes staring at concrete. Rivulets of sweat dripped from his gargantuan head onto the floor, forming a puddle near his feet. Moments earlier Aleksandr Karelin had extended an unbeaten streak that spans more than nine years. It hadn't been easy. "Your toughest match in nine years?" he was asked. "Not so tough," he replied. Karelin (left) and Ghaffari went at it for eight minutes. photograph by John Iacono The scoreboard, and the puddle of sweat, told a different story. Karelin and a bulldog from Paramus, N.J., named Matt Ghaffari wrestled each other for the 13th time, and reality slapped Ghaffari in the face again. Karelin, 45-0 in Olympic and world championship competition since his last loss, in 1987, won his third Olympic gold medal in the 286-pound Greco-Roman class, besting Ghaffari 1-0 on an early takedown. Strange match. As is his custom, Ghaffari sprinted from the locker room to the mat to music from Rocky. He came out head-slapping and seeking an early edge against the man he has become obsessed with beating. No such luck. Two minutes into the match Karelin grabbed Ghaffari near the edge of the mat, shoving him down and earning the lone point. For the next six minutes the two grizzlies pawed at each other, sweating profusely, working each other into exhaustion. "Once he scored," Ghaffari said, "he knew he had it won. I just can't score on the guy. He doesn't give you an opening." Karelin inspires that kind of awe. The man he had beaten in the morning semifinals, Panayiotis Poikilidis of Greece, said afterward, "I will be honored to tell my children I wrestled this great man." Ghaffari has a poster of Karelin in his locker at training camp in Colorado Springs and a portrait of him in his living room. On Monday night Ghaffari went to bed in the athletes' village and dreamed the dream he has had so many nights for so many years. "I pinned him," Ghaffari said. "Then I picked him up and told him, 'You're a great champion.'" Just last year at the world championships, Karelin whipped Ghaffari 10-0. Last night, though, was no time for moral victories. "I lost to the better man," said Ghaffari, who cried on the medal stand and later in the privacy of the locker room. "I got the silver, but I let my country and my teammates down." Fellow U.S. wrestler Brandon Paulson was happy to take home the silver—and a surprise. Paulson, a Minnesota wrestler in his first season of international competition, was outpointed 5-1 by Armen Nazaryan of Armenia in the gold medal match of the 114.5-pound class. "I achieved a lifetime dream for millions of people," Paulson said. "I won a silver medal in the Olympics." Silver is an alloy with which Karelin is unfamiliar.

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