Yesterday something strange happened in the world of judo.
French judo great and playing legend of the sport – Teddy Riner, lost a match for the first time in nearly 10 years. In total, that was his 9 loss in elite international competition.
The five-time European, ten-time world and two-time Olympic champion was defeated in the third round of the +100 kg category of the Paris Grand Slam by Japan’s Kokoro Kageura.
Even though Riner was by far the bigger man, Riner couldn’t make a successful attacking move and the match went into “Golden Score” time.
40 seconds into the period, the home crowd hero was counter by Kageura with an uchi-mata-sukashi and the fans in the arena went numb. Prior to this loss, Riner’s active for the past 10 years was 152-0!
Kageura made it to the final, but he wasn’t able to get the gold, as he lost to Netherland’s Henk Grol.