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The Bear’s Streak

Four years later at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, another wrestler grabbed the spotlight and held it with an iron grip through three straight Olympic competitions. The super heavyweight Russian Aleksandr Karelin was one of the most dominant Greco-Roman wrestlers the sport has ever known. At the Soviet Championships in 1987, the Russian Bear, as Karelin was known, suffered the first senior-level loss of his career. Following this defeat, the remarkable streak began. Karelin went undefeated going into Seoul and swept through those games, not surrendering a point until his win in the gold medal match. He remained undefeated going into the 1992 Barcelona Games, where he again won gold, giving up just one point in the whole tournament. He won his unprecedented third straight gold medal in 1996 at Atlanta, where this time his opponents did not score a single point.

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