France’s Riner is unbeatable, wins record 4th gold

Frenchman Teddy Riner claimed a fourth Olympic judo gold medal, sending the partisan crowd into near madness when he left it late to beat world number one Kim Min-jong of South Korea and claim the title in the +100kg category on Friday.

The 35-year-old, judo’s most decorated athlete at the Olympics with six medals, has now equalled the French Summer Olympics record of four golds with France’s Leon Marchand who won his fourth gold of the Paris Olympics on Friday.

Fans were jumping on their seats, making the Champs de Mars Arena’s stands shake, when Riner, who lit the Paris 2024 cauldron with three-time Olympic champion Marie-Jose Perec, inflicted the winning ippon on the world champion with a Harai-gochi with only 16 seconds left in the four-minute bout.

The roar the crowd let out was deafening, and President Emmanuel Macron made his way to congratulate the new champion, before Riner was awarded his medal by former biathlete Martin Fourcade, who holds the French record of five golds across Winter and Summer Olympics.

"He’s the ‘grand monsieur’ of French sport,” Fourcade told reporters of Riner, who gave French judo its first title at the Paris Games, therefore triggering yet another ear-splitting moment when the first official playing of the Marseillaise anthem resonated at the venue.

French fans broke into an impromptu rendition of the Marseillaise in the middle of a Brazil vs Netherlands beach volleyball game at the nearby venue by the Eiffel Tower as the news filtered through. "It is crazy, I am so happy. It shows that work pays off. I often said it but now it is just pure happiness, pure happiness,” Riner, who hails from the overseas department of Guadeloupe, said. "When it’s written, it’s written, that’s all I have to say. It is crazy.”

At the end of the fight, Riner showed three fingers, a clear reference to his three individual titles - a record he shares with Japan’s Tadahiro Nomura, who won three consecutive titles in the -60kg category in 1996, 2000 and 2004.

Riner, who laboured in his opening bout of the four on Friday, raised his level in the quarter-finals and the semis, needing only 103 seconds to win by ippon with an O-soto-gari.

Riner, who also has two bronze medals to his name, has surpassed Japanese Ryoko Tani’s tally of five Olympic medals in judo, which she collected over five consecutive Games from 1992-2008. An 11-time world champion, Riner, who had a 154-bout winning streak from 2010-2020, has won his medals over five Olympics as well - Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo in 2021 and Paris.

In his quarter final bout, he beat Tokyo silver medallist and world number four Guram Tushishvili, ending the contest with a Tani-otoshi to again send the French fans into delirium. Tushishvili got a red card for putting his leg into Riner’s crotch and his hand on the Frenchman’s face at the end of the bout and was disqualified, meaning the Georgian could not fight for a bronze medal.

He will also not be allowed to take part in the team event after being disqualified from the Games altogether, the International Judo Federation said.

Tajikistan’s Temur Rakhimov and Alisher Yusupov of Uzbekistan were awarded bronzes.

Earlier Brazilian Beatriz Souza won the gold medal in the women’s over 78kg category, beating Raz Hershko of Israel who took silver.

Kim Ha-yun of South Korea was awarded bronze, as well as France’s Romane Dicko.