Relieved of about twenty kilos, Teddy Riner made a strong impression at the Doha Masters where he quietly carried it off a little less than a year after his defeat in Paris.
Almost a year after his quack at the Paris Tournament where he had seen his invincibility of more than nine years end after 154 consecutive victories, Teddy Riner resumed his march forward. Back at the Doha Masters, the Guadeloupe won in Qatar. His executioner from Paris, the Japanese Kokoro Kageura, was certainly not there, but there were a lot of people including his compatriot Hisayoshi Harasawa or the European champion Tamerlan Bashaev.
But it is another Russian, the young Inal Tasoev, that the Frenchman faced in the final. And confirming the impression left throughout the day, the two-time Olympic champion, who is aiming for a third gold medal in Tokyo this summer, asserted his position against the 3rd world in the category. Relieved of 26 kilos, the Habs, appeared very particularly mobile and enterprising, won thanks to a new ippon after 1’33 ”of fight.
First four fights well managed
Teddy Riner’s day had started smoothly. Opposed to the Dutch Roy Meyer, sanctioned for non-combativity, the ten-time world champion did not tremble even if he had to wait until the end of the fight to dominate the bronze medalist of the 2019 Worlds thanks to a sumi-gaeshi synonymous with second waza-ari. In the process, the French had been more incisive against the young Georgian Gela Zaalishvili, winning thanks to an ippon in less than two minutes.
In the quarter-finals, opposed to Russian Tamerlan Bashaev, European champion in pulling, the native of the Abymes had again made a strong impression by showing offensive. Audacity rewarded one minute from the end of the fight by an o-uchi-gari. And the semi-final was perfectly managed with a victory obtained against the Ukrainian Iakiv Khammo after a perfectly controlled fight and thanks to a waza-ari registered after just over a minute of combat.
