DEBATE – With two new Olympic titles, Teddy Riner continues to write his legend. To the point of applying for the title of best male judoka of the beginning of the century? A question that divides the editorial staff of the Figaro.
Yes, Teddy Riner is the greatest
It is always difficult to compare athletes from different categories because the competition is not the same, nor are the issues. On the other hand, what is certain, and indisputable, is the list of achievements. And Teddy Riner’s is by far the most extensive in all of world judo. 11 world champion titles, 3 individual Olympic titles, 2 team titles in which he played a major role… Not to mention this almost unreal series of 154 consecutive victories, synonymous with ten years of invincibility. The numbers do not say everything about the quality of a judoka, but they still contribute greatly to it.
Now, beyond that, there is also this ability of the Frenchman to last in a category that is so tough and demanding, that of the heavyweights. To have succeeded, after his semi-failure in Tokyo where he only took bronze in the individual, to rebuild himself, to reinvent himself even, to ultimately achieve the festival of ippons that we witnessed last week at the Arena Champ-de-Mars, is just fabulous. Riner has always known how to adapt and evolve with the times. From the youngster who put boxes on everyone, he was then able to show himself to be more patient, more tactical, more grocer too but in the good sense of the term. As if for each problem that arose for him, he simply had the solution.
Finally, the last argument that makes him the greatest is the respect and fear that he inspires in all his opponents (except the Georgian Tushishvili, apparently). For almost ten years, Japan only had eyes for him, no longer looking for the best judoka in the heavyweights but the one with the best profile to beat the Guadeloupean who had become the absolute reference. A quest that led the Japanese to get lost. And here too, where Riner is unsurpassable is that in each tournament, he must face at least two, or even three opponents who will completely close the game. However, we cannot imagine the difficulty of bringing down a big guy of 120 or 130 kilos whose only objective is to stay standing, or on his knees, but above all not to end up on his back. This symbolizes Riner’s greatness better than words.
By CC
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No, Teddy Riner is not the greatest
His name probably won’t mean anything to casual followers. But any lover of the discipline has already spent hours in front of the compilations of the most beautiful boxes of the Japanese Shohei Ono. At just 32 years old, the king of -73 kilos had the time to reign as undisputed master of his category for more than a decade and to fill his trophy cabinet: two Olympic titles and four world championships. A generational talent, Shohei Ono evolved in a weight category far from being insignificant: the most difficult of all, what’s more in a golden age with the presence of An Chang-rim, Rustam Orujov, Lasha Shavdatuashvili, Soichi Hashimoto, Hidayat Heydarov or Ugo Legrand. So many extraordinary fighters, where Teddy Riner’s opponents have always been a notch below with rare exceptions.
But if Shohei Ono became a living god in the land of the rising sun, it was because of his style and his personality. He betrayed no emotion, in respect of the martial code and always showed fair play, unlike the one-time French world champion – his attitude after his setback in 2010 during the world championship in Tokyo had caused a stir in Japan. The neo-coach represented a traditional judo in all its forms, almost backward-looking, far from the globalization of his sport. For him, a fight was simple: where the war of the kumikata, the seizure of the opponent’s kimono, has become a central key to modern fights as much as a sleeping pill for spectators, he always refused to comply. His use of the uchi-mata and his o-soto-gari have become reference models in dojos. And in terms of aesthetics, he ranks alongside Roger Federer in tennis or Zinedine Zidane in football.
While some play the game of shidos (penalties for non-combativity or illegal guarding), he had only one goal: ippon.I remain convinced that, ideally, a judo fight should take place as simply as possible, he explained at the beginning of the year in Libération. It starts with hadjime (“start!”), it falls and ippon! Today, there are penalties all the time. You can’t do real and good judo. I’m not saying that it’s not serious to lose. But winning by running away from the fight, I don’t know if that has much value. The worst thing is that it’s not funny for the public, it’s not interesting to watch anymore…»
Why did he hang up his kimono so young, when his domination seemed eternal? His victory in Tokyo was a high point and he saw no point in continuing. His weariness of closed combats kept him completely away from the tatami. And if his list of achievements is not more extensive, it is because he always reserved his appearances for major occasions, to remind us how much seeing him on a tatami was an event.
For Ono, victory was inseparable from the aesthetics of the fight. If Johann Cruyff was the game, as our colleagues at L’Équipe headlined in 2016 when the Dutch footballer died, he was judo. With this mentality, he is naturally opposed to Teddy Riner, who favored victory over style for a good part of his career. The Japanese also regretted that the Guadeloupean giant was not more inclined to attack and that, according to him, he would never have reached the peak of his technical potential, preferring to base his style on his colossal physique.
Other names can also be put forward. Tadahiro Nomura, three consecutive Olympic champion in the super-lightweight (under 60 kilos) in 1996, 2000 and 2004 – a feat Teddy Riner never achieved – was renowned for his extraordinary speed. Ilias Iliadis made his legend in Greece by becoming Olympic champion in the under 81 kilos at just 17 years old, in 2004. Today, Hifumi Abe, two-time Olympic champion in the under 66 kilos, saw his five-year unbeaten run end on Saturday in the mixed team final against Joan-Benjamin Gaba, but his aesthetics and his rivalry with Joshiro Maruyama have left their mark on his country.
By MD
SEE ALSO – 2024 Olympics: When the French football team gets excited by Léon Marchand’s victory in the 200m butterfly
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