and Togo is in the background… – OA Sport

Clarisse Agbegnenou, two Olympic gold medals and a silver medal and five world titles in the 63 kg category, is undoubtedly one of the stars of world judo. After the double gold medal won at the Tokyo Games, the first judoka in history to win both the individual and team titles, the French champion took a sabbatical year in which she became a motherbut has never hidden his intention to return to the tatami as soon as possible in view of Paris 2024.

In November, Agbegnenou returned to competition in the colors of her club, Red Star Champigny, for the Champions League. After defeating her compatriot Candice Lebreton and the British Jemima Yeats-Brown, the final saw her face off against another athlete from the French national team, Margaux Pinot, two-time European champion in the 70 kg category, who defended the colors of the US Orleans Loiret Judo. In the all-transalpine challenge, Agbegnenou was however forced to forfeit in the middle of the match due to a knee injury.

After having withdrawn from the Grand Slam in Paris given the still precarious state of her knee, Agbegnenou was called up for the Israeli stage of the World Tour, to make her return to the national team. Everything normal, until two weeks before the competition, when the FFJ, the French federation, asked the athlete to wear the national judogi, produced by Adidas, instead of that of the Olympic champion’s personal sponsor, Mizuno.

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Faced with this request, Agbegnenou could not help but refuse, having never tried the Adidas judogi before, and having always fought with the Mizuno one. The athlete explained that she could have accepted if the request had been notified in time to train sufficiently with the new judogi, but that by now it was too late, and that she could have discussed it again for subsequent competitions. But, in response, the FFJ threatened the athlete to exclude her from the Tel Aviv race, and even not to convene her for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

For the stage in Tel Aviv, in the end the FFJ allowed the athlete to fight with the Mizuno judogi, but without being assisted by the federal coaches, and confirming the possibility of excluding her from the next Olympic competition. Her coach’s chair therefore remained empty throughout the day and, probably both low on fitness and emotionally shaken by the situation, Agbegnenou won just two matches out of four to finish in seventh place. To clarify, the last time Agbegnenou had not reached the final in a competition was in December 2017, when she was third at the World Masters in St. Petersburg, while the last time she had missed the podium was in April of the same year, at the European Championships in Warsaw, where, however, he had to give up fighting in the final for the bronze medal due to an injury.

After the competition, the Olympic champion posted a video on social networks, in which she explained the current situation, recounting what we have exposed so far. The athlete also recalled that the FFJ allows Teddy Riner, the other great star of French judo, to fight with his own personal judogi, produced by Fight Art, with which he won the gold medal at the recent Grand Slam in Paris. If there is one athlete who can claim the same treatment as Riner, it is certainly Agbegnenou, as evidenced by his cabinet of medals

So what future for Agbegnenou? Currently, the thirty-year-old is among the squads for the World Cup in Doha, which will take place in May, but the parties will first have to find an agreement. The most plausible hypothesis remains that of reconciliation, given that both the athlete and the French federation have an interest in her participation both in this year’s World Cup and (especially) at the home Olympics, where Agbegnenou could repeat the double gold of Tokyo. It would be truly unreasonable for the FFJ to exclude an athlete of her caliber over sponsorship issues. In the worst case scenario, however, Agbegnenou could be excluded from the national team, and then she could resort to her Togolese origins, and sensationally change the sports flag. This would lead her to lose all her points in the Olympic ranking, which moreover are only those of the seventh place in Tel Aviv, but, knowing her past, we believe that it would not take long to get back on top and make time to qualify under the aegis of the African country. For now, it remains only a fantajudo hypothesis.

Photo: IJF