Teddy Riner stays at “home”: the three-time Olympic judo champion has extended his contract with Paris Saint-Germain until 2026, the Parisian club announced on Monday.
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“I have no words to say how much I love this club. This is where I was born and this is where I will end up (…) It was my formative club, it was my first steps in judo, it was my first club love in football”said the sportsman, who returned to Paris SG in 2017, during a press conference in Boulogne-Billancourt.
“At the club, I have a team around me that helps me develop every day, listens to me, and tries to make me the best on the mat”he added, welcoming the quality of the group, less than a month after PSG’s victory in the French Team Championship.
“If there is not in the group this desire to evolve together and to seek the most beautiful medals, it is complicated, he specified. There, they (the PSG, editor’s note) have achieved the top. Not necessarily by taking the best, but by taking a group that evolves together and is capable of winning everything.”
At 33, the heavyweight with five Olympic medals (two individual titles and two bronze medals, one team title) and ten world titles, is already looking to the Paris Olympics in two years: “It’s the number 1 objective”, he said. Then he plans to “go to the other side and (to) accompany other athletes”without knowing exactly in what form.
In the meantime, he must resume individual competition at the Budapest Grand Slam (July 8-10) and is aiming for an eleventh victory at the World Championships in Uzbekistan scheduled for October.
