Teddy Riner superstar, Joan-Benjamin Gaba as savior… How the Blues overthrew the Japanese and won gold

Teddy Riner scored the decisive point to allow Les Bleus to retain their title in the Olympic mixed team event at the end of a final that will undoubtedly go down in history.

History could not have been written any other way. It is 6:45 p.m. on the clock, Saturday, August 3, when the screen of the Arena Champ-de-Mars stops on a weight category: +90 kg. The stadium can let its joy explode. The lottery has designated the last fighter responsible for giving the decisive point to his country in the final of the mixed team event of the Paris Olympic Games.

Behind this figure, there is a name: that of Teddy Riner, the most successful fighter in the history of this sport. Eleven world crowns and three individual titles at the Olympics, the last having been won not even twenty-four hours earlier. The 35-year-old Frenchman is at the conclusion of this exceptional turnaround.

You have to go back an hour to understand. After having scattered all its opponents like a puzzle, France finds its best enemy, Japan, and its armada in the final. Like the day before, a huge tifo revealing the blue flag is unfurled in the stands; the noise is deafening.

“We don’t hit the ground,” warns the speaker to the spectators, worried that the sheet metal construction supporting the stands might collapse. Already the day before, Teddy Riner had caused the building to capsize. Now it is the decibels that strike the eardrums.

For this fight, a change was made on the French side: Clarisse Agbégnénou replaces Marie-Eve Gahié in -70 kg. The 31-year-old judoka was saved for the final in order to keep her physical freshness. Maxime-Gaël Ngayap Hambou is on springs for his entry into the competition. He needs it, it is a mountain that rises in front of him in the person of Sanshiro Murao. Double world champion and Olympic vice-champion. The experience of major events makes the difference and the Japanese knocks down the 23-year-old judoka barely golden score started.

Romane Dicko must wash away the affront and equalize against an opponent who usually competes in -78 kg. But as Emilie Andéol, consultant for France Télévisions and Olympic champion in Rio, pointed out, Rika Takayama uses the power of the Clamart native to bring her down. Before exhausting her. Fatal, 2-0. The cardio goes up in the stands. The specter of another final lost during these Games looms.

This is the moment chosen by the boss to take his cape out of the trunk for the first time. The long-awaited duel the day before between Teddy Riner and his best enemy Tatsuru Saito did not take place, so the Frenchman makes up for it. Saito comes out with his shell, so the triple Olympic champion in individual tires him out, in an Arena that tends to explode at any moment. We have to wait seven minutes of combat to see Riner propel the Japanese to the ground. The Frenchman raises his fist and can explode.

Coming after Riner is a fight in itself. Fighting Natsumi Tsunoda is another. The Japanese left no chance to Sarah-Léonie Cysique, swept away in barely two minutes. 3-1. A giant lycra suit then covers the Parisian setting and all the spectators are plunged into breathlessness. This is the price to pay to see the nine minutes of combat between Joan-Benjamin Gaba, 35th in the world and unknown a week ago, and the double Olympic champion in title Hifumi Abe.

The outcome is certain, defeat too. But the member of the “Special Forces” resists. He takes it, falls, gets up again. And finds the flaw at the end of the suspense and 4″52 of golden scoreThe match is restarted, Clarisse Agbégnénou must now equalize. The Frenchwoman has “shit” this week, in her own words, and saw the gold that was within her grasp slip away. Not this time. She scores a waza-ari and allows the Blues to equalize.

History cannot be written any other way. Only Teddy Riner can, with an almost divine breath, push the lottery to designate him. These Games are his. He is the leader of this delegation. So he goes back into battle under the eyes of an Agbégnénou nestled in the arms of Romane Dicko, while Ngayap Hambou and Gaba stand side by side. More than six minutes later, Saito tastes the ground of the Arena for the second time in a few minutes. The stadium could explode, once again. The tricolor clan in the stands no longer controls itself and goes to join the Blues on the bench. The French judo team is double Olympic champion, at the end of one of the craziest comebacks in history.