The boss is in place! Determined and diligent Teddy Riner won the Grand Slam in Budapest on Sunday, where he made his return to individual competition a year after his individual bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
Coming to Hungary to gauge himself on the road to the Paris-2024 Olympics where he will aim for a third individual Olympic title, the 33-year-old Frenchman, encouraged by the “Teddy! Teddy! ” of his relatives (his children Eden and Isis, his partner Luthna and his father Moïse in the lead), dominated for the title the Dutchman Jelle Snippe, ten years his junior, who had risen to the final to surprise general. He beat his opponent, who moved up from the under 100 kg category a year ago, after a quick fight, concluded by ippon after less than 40 seconds.
“It was hard to get back into it, to come back to a Grand Slam after a year of training and preparation,” he admitted. I managed to get to the end of the day, I still didn’t express myself badly, I’m happy. It shows that I have a good level, that I am not too bad and that I can believe in these Olympic Games-2024”.
Paris 2024 in sight
Riner had defeated in the semi-final the Georgian Gela Zaalishvili, 8th in the world. He won with commitment after 1 min 24 sec of combat. The outcome could have been even more expeditious since the central referee had given ippon to the French after 33 seconds of confrontation before being disavowed by the table judges.
Riner had not appeared on the international stage since the Tokyo Olympics last summer. He left Japan with an individual bronze medal and a team title. Since then, he has only participated in the French Team Championships with his PSG club in November 2021 in Perpignan, then in Villebon-sur-Yvette in May, winning all his fights each time.
For his next major meeting, he will line up for the World Championships in October in Uzbekistan, a first since the 2017 Worlds. That year, he went to Marrakech to seek the tenth planetary title of his career, a record .