Teddy Riner still not in action but no reason for stress

All top athletes are now busy collecting points for Olympic qualification, except for Teddy Riner, who still has not yet started his campaign and on Wednesday it was announced that he is not selected for the Grand Prix in Marrakech where he actually planned to compete. But Riner will still have to be fit and lose some weight.

But the French team managers don’t seem worried. In Baku, during the World Championships last year, JudoCrazy asked one of the French coaches whether there is any worry that Riner might not be able to get enough points. He replied, “When Teddy Riner wants to get the points, he will get the points just like that.”

The IJF has revealed that there will be 352 qualification spots available for the judo competition in Tokyo 2020 (176 men and 176 women). For each of the 7 weight categories (for men and women), the 18 highest ranked athletes on the IJF World Ranking List by May 25, 2020 will be considered to be qualified for the Olympics.  352 based upon the ranking, 14 athletes from Japan as host nations and 20 invited athletes from all over the world to spice up the number of (exotic) countries.

Teddy Riner wants to get the immortal status when he might take his third Olympic gold medal. One fact is that also the current king in judo, Tadahiro Nomura who already won three Olympic gold medals, rarely competed in the World Cups in his time. You barely saw him and when he needed to qualify, he did… just like that. So will Big Teddy.