John Goodbody

From John Goodbody in Sydney

In Atlanta, the Americans called him the “bouncer in the meanest bar in hell”. Here, the Australians came to gawk today at perhaps the most extraordinary figure in a Games full of extraordinary figures.

Wrestler Aleksandr Karelin ambled on to the mat with a record that might even make Steve Redgrave raise an eyebrow. The Russian was bidding for his fourth successive Olympic super-heavyweight Greco-Roman title in a career that has seen him unbeaten for 13 years.

At 6ft 4in tall and 20 stone, Karelin is so physically robust that when the lift broke down at his block of flats in Novosibirsk in Siberia, he carried a large fridge unaided up eight flights of stairs to his home. Karelin has a width of shoulders and depth of chest that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger wince.

He is completely shaven with ears like lanterns, a scar on the back of his head and hooded eyelids. When he looms over an opponent's body he is as frightening to spectators as Magwitch was to Pip when he appeared from behind the gravestone in Dickens’s Great Expectations.

We need legends in sport and few are more celebrated than Karelin. He may be virtually unknown in Britain. As I whispered to John Motson when he was commentating on the 1976 Olympic final and thought that he had got the two fighters the wrong way round, “I would not worry, John, there are only four Britons who know anything about Greco-Roman wrestling and three of them are out training.”

But in other parts of the world, he is deified. Last year, the International Sportswriters' Federation voted him as one of the 25 greatest sportsmen and woman of the 20th century, a man on the same level as Muhammad Ali, Pelé and Jesse Owens.

He is nicknamed “The Experiment” because he seems literally superhuman. When he was interviewed by an American in 1991, he entertained the journalist by demonstrating his flexibility. He swung one of his size 15 shoes straight overhead and without leaning back touched a chandelier eight feet overhead.

He came easily through his first bout today against Serguey Moreyko of Bulgaria, who was third in the last Olympics. Karelin rested his head on his opponent’s shoulder and tried to tuck Moreyko’s arm under his armpit to get the necessary leverage in a style of wrestling in which no holds are allowed below the waist.

Moneyko, who was taller but podgier than his opponent, was having none of it and received a passivity point for scuttling off the mat. He even managed to avoid Karelin’s most savage throw, a reverse body lift. This occurs when an opponent weighing about 20 stone is lying face down on the mat. Karelin locks his hands underneath his stomach, lifts him up hip height, so that the pair look like a cross in silhouette. Karelin then arches backwards and hurls his man onto his back.

Moreyko was unable to impose himself - who can? - on Karelin. He might have wished for the support of a couple of tanks and eventually lost 3-0 on points. Another gold medal is beckoning for the Russian.

Karelin was always unusual physically. He weighed 15lb at birth and developed his physical ability through such sessions as running for two hours in thick snow. He says: “You come home, crawl into bed and sleep soundly. This is typical Siberian fun.”

His other interests are cultural, particularly reading literature and poetry. As he said after winning the gold medal in Atlanta: “I am a lot more fun away from the mat.” The world’s wrestlers are understandably sorry about that.