Teddy Riner: "There are no easy matches at the Olympics"
Judo•
With the Paris 2024 Olympics fast approaching, France's and Paris Saint-Germain's superstar judoka told PSG TV about his ambitions for the Games.
In this article
Teddy, the Games are only a few days away. Are you ready?
"I feel good. I've prepared really well. I have tried to work on everything, to neglect nothing. Now, we're just a few days away from the Games. We're waiting for them to start, to finally know who will get that beautiful gold medal in the +100 kilo category."
These Games in Paris must be special for you. Does it change anything in the way you approach them?
I think each event has its story. For now, I have no idea what is going to happen. In any case, it's the Olympic Games, you can be sure of that, and you have to put your best foot forward. Sometimes, it's not going to necessarily be a combat. It'll also be decided in the head, with intelligence. You have to be ready for everything.
As an athlete, how do you handle the pressure of an Olympics?
The best advice anyone can give an athlete preparing for the Olympics is to stay calm, prepare well, and do what they know how to do. What I know how to do is judo, come what may. You have to stop asking yourself 10,000 questions. It's the Olympics, it's a competition, there's an opponent, it's an event I want to win. So you have to give yourself the means to achieve your ambitions.
How do you asses your opponents?
I'm thinking more about moving forward and doing what I have to do. Enjoying it when I can and winning when I can. There are no easy matches at the Olympics. It's a combat sport, you mustn't forget that. It's the best and the one who's hungriest when it comes down to it who'll win the medals.
Given your recent results, are you determined to show that you're still the number one in your category?
Like a lion ready to reclaim his place, I'm preparing the Games. So, there comes a time when I will mark out my territory and in Paris it'll be the same. It's like that, that's the combat. Having said that, it's the Olympics and I know it'll be a fight, that I mustn't give up on anything. That's the Olympics. The one who's hungriest, who shows the most guts, the one who gets their teeth fully stuck into it will win.
As well as individual goals, there's also the mixed team gold medal up for grabs...
For the moment, I think everyone is focussed on the individual events and after 2 August, I think we'll all pull together to do something great, just as we did in Tokyo. Before that, I think everyone will do their own thing. So it's something that is going to be put in place progressively and it'll happen naturally.