Tokyo (AFP)

Olympic champion, finally!

Clarisse Agbégnénou took a perfect revenge on Tuesday and erased her disappointment of 2016 with the Olympic title of -63 kg won in Tokyo, the country of judo, against the opponent who had beaten her in the final in Rio.

The beauty of this title is that Agbégnénou now has two medals to cherish.

Tokyo gold, of course, but also Rio silver, this unloved medal, which she said was "not the right one".

"But maybe I will be able to appreciate it now. Because she is still locked up!", She admitted in the mixed zone, absolutely happy and as relieved by the end of a victorious but sometimes bitter cycle.

"I feel so light", she confirmed, before recounting the decisive moment, when she knocked down Slovenian Tina Trstenjak and the referee "said something": "I don't even know what, waza-ari or ippon, but something that meant it was over! ".

"There I say to myself + Clarisse, that's it, it's over, you can breathe, you did it +. And all the emotions come, all the hardness, all the years that I have worked, far from my family , all the people who helped me ... ", she said.

- Slash -

Since Rio, Agbégnénou (28) has piled up the world and European gold medals - she now has five of each - but she was only thinking about the one she was missing.

So at Nippon Budokan, the temple of judo in Japan, the Frenchwoman was on a mission.

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A judo fight is not won with an expression on one face, but there was on that of the French champion so much rage returned, determination, confidence too, when she danced helmet on the ears before her entries on the tatami mat, that we sometimes wondered what could happen to him.

Her first match was also like a blow to the entire table and it was Sandrine Billiet, former Belgian champion who is fighting today for Cape Verde, who paid the price, scanned by ippon in 19 seconds.

The following, the Dutch Juul Franssen and the Canadian Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard, both beaten by waza-ari, held until the end of regulation time, but no more.

Except Tina Trstenjak, the best, this cursed and respected rival who also beat Agbégnénou in the final of the 2015 World Cup.

- An obsession -

Against the Slovenian, Agbégnénou had to wait for the golden score to place the decisive attack.

Already in tears, she then embraced the rival with whom she has shared all the world and Olympic titles since 2015 and lifted her in her arms.

The Frenchwoman therefore holds her revenge and now has the most beautiful prize list in French women's judo.

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The expectations were immense.

His, first, because Olympic gold had become an obsession.

The postponement of one year of the Olympics-2020 was for her a suffering which brought her "very low", to the point of thinking "to stop everything".

Those of the French women's judo team, then, because she is the patron and the only one to have already known the Games. She sometimes moved away from it this year, during her reconstruction and her preparation, but the way in which Amandine Buchard or Romane Dicko, madly happy, came to hug her while she was answering journalists' questions shows that the collective is alive and well.

Agbégnénou did not seek to hide either and her status as standard bearer exposed her even more.

"Everyone was waiting for her but she ignored all that and remained fixed on her goal. Even if she has a lot of work, the Olympics, the pressure, the flag, all that can weigh down, even on the greatest ", reacted his coach Larbi Benboudaoud, who hailed an" extraordinary "success.

"That's the stuff she was missing. She came full circle and she won it all," he summed up.

© 2021 AFP