Rulon Gardner’s battle with himself

(Michael Wagstaffe/Yahoo Sports illustration)A video buffers. A crackly speaker sputters. Bob Costas’ voice hums through it. And on a gray Thursday morning in American Fork, Utah, inside a center for adults with intellectual disabilities, grainy footage fills a TV screen.

"We turn now to Greco-Roman wrestling,” Costas says, and the rest of the room falls silent.

The video is nearly two decades old, but YouTube has preserved its menace. Costas begins his prelude to the men’s heavyweight final at the Sydney Olympics. “The overwhelming favorite,” he explains, “is Russian Aleksandr Karelin. These are the numbers: Olympic gold medals, three. World titles, nine. Career losses in international…