COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The United States Olympic Committee announced today that Olympic gold medalist wrestler Rulon Gardner will join USOC President Sandy Baldwin at the Speaker's Ceremonial Office (H-210) in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, January 31, 2000 (11:35 a.m. EST) to make a special presentation to the Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert.    President Baldwin and Gardner will present Speaker Hastert with a blue blazer from the USOC that is emblematic of the position to which the Board of Directors elected him for the 2000-2004 Quadrennium. Speaker Hastert was named to the post of Honorary Vice President when the USOC Board met in Washington December 2-3, 2000. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were also elected to the honorary posts of President and Vice President of the USOC, respectively.    Speaker Hastert, a former wrestling coach, invited Gardner to Capitol Hill to recognize his tremendous accomplishment at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. Gardner in his gold medal match in Sydney pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Olympic history when he defeated the previously unbeaten and three-time Olympic gold medalist Aleksandr Karelin of Russia in Greco-Roman wrestling.    Speaker Hastert coached wrestling for sixteen years at the high school level in the state of Illinois, which he currently represents in Congress. In his time as a wrestling coach, he employed many of the Olympic values that make America's athletes some of the best in the world. Armed with the ideals of teamwork, personal responsibility and fair play, he molded many of his young men into champions, leading the rural Yorkville High School Foxes to the Illinois State Wrestling Championship in February 1976. Later that year, Speaker Hastert was voted Illinois Coach of the Year. In 1977, he served as President of the National Wrestling Congress, an organization that boosted the sport of amateur wrestling.    The U.S. Olympic Committee has a long standing relationship with our nation's elected officials which has included Olympians who have gone on to serve in public office. Former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley (basketball) serves as a public sector member of the USOC Board, while Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (judo) of Colorado and Congressman Jim Ryun (athletics) of Kansas have remained active in the Olympic Movement. Though not an Olympian, former Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger also serves as a public sector USOC Board member and as an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee.