Teddy Riner, recent winner of the Grand Slam in Paris after an ankle injury which kept him away from the tatami for a long time, wants to “take the time” to find his best level, a year and a half before the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
«In Paris, the ankle held up well, it was important for me to recover from adversity. (…) After this injury, doubts had set in, and it took a lot of work to get back to that level“, said Wednesday the double Olympic champion to the media in Rio de Janeiro, where he begins a ten-day training camp. “But there are still a lot of things to refine before the Games, I still have a lot of room for improvement (…) We’re going to go step by step, we’re not putting pressure on ourselves at all. You have to take the timehe added, drenched in sweat after taking on Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialists in fierce ground battles.
After winning bronze at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Riner, 33, began the Paris-2024 Olympic cycle with globe-trotting preparation, with a first internship in Brazil a year ago, before leaving for Mongolia, Morocco or Japan. He won the Budapest Grand Slam last July. But a nasty sprained right ankle in August stopped him in his tracks, notably depriving him of the Worlds-2022, which took place in October in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. “The injury slowed down the preparation a bit, but in itself we are not late, we are not ahead, we are good. A few weeks before Paris, I found some sensations, now we must continue, and we must not be in a hurryhe explained in Rio, where he trains at the facilities of Flamengo, the country’s most popular football club.
«It just pissed me off because I lost four months in my preparation, (…) whereas when I got injured, I was at an excellent level“, he lamented. After the victory against his public ten days ago in Paris, being only “at 70%of his abilities, his first big goal is to win his eleventh world title in Doha (May 7-11). “If they tell me that I will be at 90% for the Worlds, I sign immediately“, he assured. Same story with his trainer Franck Chambily, who accompanied him to Rio. “We, the 100%, 110%, we want them for the Olympics. For the World Championships, it will of course be sharper than at the Paris tournament, but we may not yet be 100%“, he explained to AFP.
