Coming to the Hungarian capital to "measure himself" on the road to the big Olympic meeting in Paris in two years, the Frenchman, ten times world champion, won his first three fights of the day in the over 100 without much difficulty. kg.
The 33-year-old judoka will face for the title the Dutch Jelle Snippe, ten years his junior, who rose to the final to everyone's surprise.
Riner dominated in the semi-final the Georgian Gela Zaalishvili, 8th in the world, under the encouragement of his relatives, who came in large numbers to Hungary.
He won with commitment after 1 min 24 sec of combat.
The outcome could have been even more expedited since the central referee had given ippon to the French after 33 seconds of confrontation before being disavowed by the table judges.
In the previous round, the Guadeloupe defeated the solid Azerbaijani Ushangi Kokauri, 9th in the world rankings and vice-world champion in 2018. He won on penalties after 2 min 50 of combat without really needing to attack his opponent.
Exempted from the first round, he had won his recovery fight a little earlier against the modest Brazilian Joao Cesarino, 146th in the world.
Riner had not appeared on the international stage since the Tokyo Olympics last summer.
He left Japan with an individual bronze medal and a team title.
Since then, he has only participated in the French Team Championships with his PSG club in November 2021 in Perpignan, then in Villebon-sur-Yvette in May, winning all his fights each time.
He aims at the Paris Olympics, in two years, a third individual Olympic title.
© 2022 AFP