Big burger could help ‘Loser’ land contestants

Olympic wrestling champion Rulon Gardner has been competing on NBC's "The Biggest Loser," trying to slim down from 474 pounds by working out and eating healthy food in modest portions.

While the 2000 gold medalist consumes all the right things on the reality show, his restaurant in Afton, Wyo., seemingly strives to produce future contestants for the weight-loss show.

Rulon Gardner's Burger Barn serves up the six-patty, 24-ounce Rulon Burger with a basket of fries and 44-ounce drink. Finish it all in less than 20 minutes, and you get a signed Rulon Gardner Olympic Champion T-shirt and your name on Gardner's Wall of Fame.

Gardner's best time is 8 minutes, 23 seconds, set when he opened the restaurant in his hometown in 2004.

Gardner, 39, weighed 200 pounds more than his wrestling weight at the start of the show and survived elimination Tuesday night to push his weight loss to 80 pounds, getting down to 394.

He would weigh more had he not lost a toe to frostbite after being stranded in a snowmobile outing in 2002.

■ BROTHER'S ALTAR-EGO -- A brother occasionally can be a heel to his sibling. And a practical joke plays best on a wedding day.

Brothers Kyle Busch, 25, and Kurt Busch, 32, have tangled on the racetrack before, but Kurt is one up on little brother heading into the NASCAR Sprint Cup season.

Kyle married Samantha Sarcinella on New Year's Eve in Chicago in a ceremony that included a moment when bride and groom had to kneel at the altar.

Kurt had gotten hold of Kyle's shoes earlier and wrote "Help" on the left sole and "Me" on the right.

"As soon as we got to the church and we got up to the front and had to kneel for the first time -- because it was a traditional Catholic wedding -- I was like, 'Oh, man! I forgot!' " Kyle said. "I had a deal with my Toyota friends that I was going to put Toyota on the bottom of my shoes, and I had forgotten to do it."

So instead of plugging a sponsor, Kyle -- thanks to Kurt -- made one last plea as a bachelor.

"I hadn't even looked," Kyle said. "Who looks at the bottom of their shoes on their wedding day?

"I'll give this advice to anybody else who ever gets married: Look at the bottom of your shoes before you put 'em on, because somebody's going to screw with you."

And no one better to do that than a brother.

■ YANKEES MOVE -- The Steinbrenner family, as part of a renovation project at the New York Yankees' spring training stadium in Tampa, Fla., decided that team co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner will use the office of his late father, George Steinbrenner.

Hank Steinbrenner said on Tuesday that "it's a great honor" to move into the office his father had worked out of since the mid-1990s.

This could be the first time the Yankees did something to save money since the late Steinbrenner bought the team in 1973.

COMPILED BY JEFF WOLF
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL