Tokyo (AFP)
Teddy Riner, world judo superstar in search of a historic third Olympic heavyweight coronation, reveals that he suffered a tear in a cruciate ligament in his left knee at the end of February, which deprived him of judo for two months, in a documentary by France Télévisions which will be broadcast on Thursday.
In this documentary to which AFP had access and programmed on France 2, on the eve of the opening ceremony of the Olympics, we see Riner injuring his left knee during a training fight during a internship in Morocco at the end of February.
"At that time, I thought I had made my cruciate (ligaments) ...", he told AFP, who questioned him after the presentation of this film.
"I thought I was going to take seven months and that was screwed up. It's going so fast, I say to myself fucking, this is serious, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. (. ..) I hold my knee. But (...) I force myself to step on it, I get back on the mat and then I stop, ”he continued.
"I do a first exam and they tell me it's nothing, it's a small cyst. I tell myself it's okay. And when I come back to France, I take the exams again and I am told, no. And there, the thing I ask is how long? ", explains the ten-time world champion, who had to wear a splint for two months.
"People start telling me two, three months. I say no, it's not possible, continues Riner (32). I count on one thing: my whole career, every time I have had injuries, when I am told four weeks, usually in two weeks I am cured. "
Riner aims to become the first three-time heavyweight Olympic champion in history on Friday, July 30.
Only the Japanese Tadahiro Nomura, crowned in 1996, 2000 and 2004 in lightweight, has succeeded so far.
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