On a thick Athens night, Rulon Gardner took bronze and left his wrestling shoes, walking off the mat and into retirement decked in white socks and fresh tears.
Now, Gardner is angrily moving away from his American Olympic family, refusing to appear at a June athlete summit for Turin hopefuls because he feels the U.S. Olympic Committee prematurely yanked his grant money and health insurance.
It’s all about that dramatic retirement – a shoe-shedding moment that helped define the Athens Games last summer. But that night also left Gardner ineligible for his final, five-month stretch of USOC financial aid.
“Ten years I gave to the sport. I won a bronze medal, walked away and then, in March, I lost my insurance and they pulled my $2,000 in annual grant money,” Gardner said last week. “My contract wasn’t up until July. I had viewed that money like severance pay, something to help me move on. But for me, it was like a slap in the face.”
Gardner, a heavyweight who won gold at the 2000 Sydney Games, points out that Lloyd Ward, the USOC’s chief for less than two years, got a full year of medical benefits when he quit amid a 2003 ethics scandal.
“For me, economically, it’s not a big deal. I would rather give my $2,000 to the athletes who need it,” Gardner said. “What bothers me is they just said, ‘It’s gone – you don’t deserve it because you retired.”‘
But according to USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel, the organization isn’t treating Gardner differently than it does any retired athlete: Olympic training money only goes to Olympic hopefuls.
According to a USOC policy, when athletes announce their retirement, “they are typically no longer eligible for funding,” Seibel said. In addition, the national governing bodies that run each sport routinely transfer a retiring athlete’s health insurance policy to an Olympic hopeful.
The USOC spends $3,150 per athlete to provide medical benefits and those costs have almost doubled since 2000, Seibel said.
“Their idea for this money is to help athletes continue to pursue their Olympic dreams,” said Mitch Hull, director of national teams at USA Wrestling.
“The USOC has empathy for Rulon. But as great a person as he is, even if I have the money, I can’t give it to him. I have to answer to my board. And they’ll ask me, ‘Well, did he retire? What does the policy say?’ The policy says he’s not eligible for the money.
“But Rulon is stating something as an Olympic medalist and maybe,” Hull said, “it’s something we need to think about.”
Hull suggests that the USOC’s Athlete Advisory Council – a panel of Olympians representing each sport – should consider whether benefits and grant money be extended to help retiring athletes transition into the work world. That group could stump for just such a financial change, he said.
Until that happens, though, some athletes will quietly tiptoe toward retirement – reaping the final months of their USOC financial backing – but holding no real plans of competing again, Gardner said.
“That’s what everybody does,” Gardner said. “The only thing is they can’t go out with dignity.”
One of Gardner’s Olympic teammates, gold-medal winner Cael Sanderson, hasn’t competed since Athens. He also has not revealed whether he will retire from wrestling. He gets health insurance through his job as an assistant wrestling coach at Iowa State but says the USOC has continued sending him grant money.
The last check “was pretty recently actually, but I’m getting close to being done,” Sanderson said. He added that the money is earned.
“Like Rulon, you win those medals and your NGB is getting money for that,” Sanderson said. “You’d think they would try to take care of you.”
For now, Gardner is not taking care of the USOC. He won’t appear, he said, at an athlete summit June 9-12 at Beaver Creek where he was scheduled to tell Olympic hopefuls how to prepare for Turin.
“I want to help the USOC, because I believe in the Olympic Games. But they don’t think an athlete deserves that money. And I have to think about the rest of my life,” Gardner said. “Am I going to do an appearance for two days for no money? I have to go out and earn a living.”
“Hey,” Hull added, “those were pretty expensive shoes he left on the mat. They cost him $2,000, unfortunately.”
Staff writer Bill Briggs can be reached at 303-820-1720 or bbriggs@denverpost.com.
