Bam, within seconds the Korean heavyweight Jaegu Youn is already on his back with a dull thud. “Ooh,” shouts joyfully from the stands. Ippon for Teddy Riner, the French judo legend, who, after greeting, walks down the tatami with a brisk step, puts on his slippers and disappears behind the scenes. It almost seems nonchalant, as if the job has been done again.
Riner, who competes at heavyweight (+100 kilograms), thus reaches the semi-finals of the Grand Slam of Paris on Sunday afternoon.
Nearly 20,000 people are in the stands of the Accor Arena: judo is serious business in France. Many children in sweaters from their judo club – France has about five thousand – who have sometimes spent hours in the car to get here. Everyone screams for every French judoka. But the biggest star is Riner (34), who is so famous in France that he cannot just walk on the street. Only Olympic champion Clarisse Agbegnenou – who won on Saturday in the category up to 63 kilos – comes anywhere close to him.
“He is a legend,” says Bastien Hyrondelle, who is sitting at the very top of the stands of the Accor Arena. It was an “emotional” moment, says Hyrondelle, when he saw Riner step onto the mat live for the first time this Sunday. The great thing about Riner as a judoka, he believes, is his strength and his dominance. “People are really afraid of him.”
Six more months
The Paris Grand Slam is one of the most important tournaments on the judo calendar. But this time it is also an important measuring moment: how is Riner doing, with only six months before the Olympic Games start? Can he win Olympic gold one more time in front of his own audience here in Paris, the city where he grew up? It would be his third gold at the Games: the only judoka to ever achieve this was the Japanese Tadahiro Nomura (1996, 2000 and 2004).
In addition to a measuring moment, some of the visitors also see this Grand Slam as a last chance to see Riner, who no longer takes action that often, play judo in real life. The Games are virtually impossible to visit: the cheapest tickets for judo at the Games are around 300 euros and the final has long been sold out. And whether Riner will continue after 'Paris' remains to be seen. “Teddy comes here to say hello to everyone,” think twin sisters Cécile and Diane Barnicaud, who have come to Paris from the Avignon region.
Riner is already the most awarded judoka ever: with eleven world titles, two Olympic titles and two bronze medals at the Games. He was undefeated for almost ten years, between 2010 and 2020: 154 games in a row. “In terms of performance, he is the greatest,” says former judoka Henk Grol, who is also in the stands in Paris. “Also in terms of size and physicality by the way.”
Even compared to other judokas in his weight class, Teddy Riner is an imposing presence. He is 2.04 meters tall and weighs about 140 kilos. His coach Frank Chambily, who once competed in the 60-kilogram class, barely reaches his chest.
It is sometimes whispered that Riner is so successful mainly because of his size, but that is nonsense, he said in 2022 in return for de Volkskrant. “I know judokas who are bigger or heavier than me, but not athletic.” It is “a myth,” says Riner, that bigger is also stronger.
Quite old
However impressive Riner may still be, he is no longer untouchable: he had to settle for bronze at the Tokyo Summer Games in 2021, after losing the semi-finals to the Japanese Harasawa Hisayoshi.
Judo is hard on the body, Riner admits that. At 34 years old, he is already quite old in the sport. He has been at the top for a long time: at the age of eighteen he won his first world title – as the youngest judoka ever. Then the French newspaper Le Figaro Asked Riner two years ago whether his body would make it to the Paris Games, he said: “My body is already telling me to stop.” But he doesn't listen to it, says Riner. “I have been on the mat for more than fifteen years, so my body squeaks and creaks, makes itself heard as loud as it can, but I block that out.” Although he also says in the same article that he has become “more careful” and listens to medical advice a lot better than before.
Riner is plotting his route to the Paris Games with his team, he tells Le Figaro. In practice this means: dosing. Riner only plays sporadically. Only three times last year, including the Grand Slam of Paris, which he also won.
The fact that he has lasted so long in top judo is probably partly due to that team. Even as a teenager, he gathered a group of people around him, unprecedented in judo: his own physical trainer, a technique trainer and a mental coach. He now has a full-time sparring partner and his own physiotherapist. “The bubble I created around me has made me successful,” he said two years ago the Volkskrant.
More defensive judo
On the mat, his style has changed somewhat over the years, according to Grol, who also competed in the open category in the last period of his career, but never fought the Frenchman. According to him, Riner has started playing judo more defensively. “He does just enough, takes virtually no risks.” Grol respects Riner's track record. “It is incredibly impressive that he can continue to practice judo under that pressure.” But as far as he is concerned, it does say “a different Teddy than ten years ago.”
This has actually been true since 2017, says Grol, when Riner took a long sabbatical at the end of that year, from which he only returned after a year and a half. He struggled with injuries, and – when he just started training again – also with his weight, partly because of his preference for crèpes, as can be seen in the documentary Teddy from 2020.
Riner is less dominant than before, Hyrondelle also says in the stands, although he became world champion for the eleventh time last year in Doha. “You see that he has to dose more in a tournament.” But when it counts, he is there, as it turns out in the semi-final against Alisher Yusupov. It will be an exciting match in which the Uzbek scores an early waza-ari. But Riner regroups, makes a waza-ari himself and then, with 22 seconds left on the clock, ippon.
In the final it is still a matter of nail biting for the French public. The party continues into the golden score, the extension in which every point counts. But then Riner gets hold of the Korean Minjong Kim. After the referee declares him the winner, he helps Kim up. Then he raises his fist in the air and cheers up the audience, who are eating from his hand, even more.
“That was exciting,” sighs Hyrondelle immediately after the match. “But this is great news.” Good for Riner's self-confidence, he thinks, so close to 'Paris'.
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