Back from injury, the Frenchman will aim for a seventh title at the prestigious Paris Tournament this weekend, a year and a half before the Olympic Games at home.
Back from injury, Teddy Riner, who will be aiming for a seventh title at the prestigious Paris Tournament this weekend, warns his opponents a year and a half before the Olympic Games at home: “The old man is still there!”.
Just returned from a training camp in Kazakhstan, the ten-time world champion and three-time Olympic champion will present himself on the tatami mats of Bercy on Sunday to launch his year 2023. Around him, a strong French delegation of 56 members including Romane Dicko , the new world champion of +78 kg.
Objective: “To know where I am”, explains Riner, injured in an ankle at the end of August and forced to forfeit the Worlds last fall. “That’s tournaments, knowing how to position yourself in relation to the competition, having fun and then continuing on this long road of preparation for the Olympic Games. It’s important to be confronted.”
Because the big meeting of 2024, the Guadeloupean is thinking about it more and more. “Everything I do today is for the Games,” he said. “It’s starting very slowly, but I think that in September when we start the season, it’s going to be the beginning and from January, the sprint.”
To achieve his goal of a third individual Olympic title, a feat hitherto only achieved in lightweight by the Japanese Tadahiro Nomura (1996, 2000 and 2004), he chose to multiply training camps abroad and welcomes it.
“I manage to knock down, even against young people who lift much more than me in bodybuilding. So the experience is there, and I say to myself + the old man is still there + and that’s a pleasure. That’s what makes you want to keep going.”
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Dicko “in Olympic form”
But at 33, his body damaged by more than 15 years of high level, Riner admits to fearing injuries. “The truth is, when I step onto a mat, I’m scared. But now we have to let go,” he says.
This weekend in the “cauldron” of Bercy, he will be able to count on other tricolor representatives to carry the hopes of medals, starting with the “little sister” Romane Dicko, revenge after his defeat in the final last year.
“I’m in Olympic form!” Says the 23-year-old judoka, who will inaugurate her new red world champion bib in Paris. A change of dimension which has not disturbed its recovery, she assures.
“For me, the World was really a stage. I’m already focused on the next Worlds and the Games next year. So mentally, as I tell myself that this is only the beginning, it was easy to come back to training.
Besides Riner and Dicko, the France team will look great despite the absence of Clarisse Agbegnenou, Madeleine Malonga and even Sarah-Léonie Cysique for medical reasons. We will notably follow several Olympic medalists such as Amandine Buchard (-52 kg), Margot Pinot (-60 kg) or Audrey Tcheuméo, five-time winner in Paris in -78 kg.
Also in the running are three Olympic champions from Tokyo: Kosovare Distria Krasniqi (-48 kg), Georgian Lasha Bekauri (-90 kg) and Czech Lukas Krpalek (titled in Japan in +100 kg and down to -100 kg).
The program :
. Saturday (from 08:00 a.m., finals from 17:00 p.m.)
Femmes: -48 kg, -52 kg, -57 kg, -63 kg
Men: -60kg, -66kg, -73kg
. Sunday (from 08:00, finals from 17:00)
Femmes: -70 kg, -78 kg, +78 kg
Men: -81 kg, -90 kg, -100 kg, +100 kg
