Whether it’s on the track, on field, in judo, fencing, sailing or shooting, even equestrian for that matter; the French have made it a trend to claim gold medals in all these sports when it comes to evaluating the nation’s performance historically in the Olympics. France affiliation with the Olympics runs deep, joining in the ranks shoulder to shoulder along with pioneering countries which rose to establish the Olympics as an international platform for athletic competition. Had it not been London hosting the event for 2012, Paris would’ve been the city preparing to receive international squads on the 27th of this month.
Having nicknames tagged along for being a legend is more of a showbiz kind of aspect mainly present in commercialized wrestling, but Teddy Riner has been christened with terms like “Teddy Winner”, which hypothetically speaking, is likewise. Riner is recognized to be the world’s youngest world champion of Judo to date, having won World Judo championships for five successive years while dominating European championships of the sport itself with ease.
He remains consistently in the Heavyweight category which falls beyond 100 kilograms and will continue to shoulder it in the current 2012 Olympics. Mastering a sport which requires subduing an opponent does require special iconic moves, and Teddy Riner hasn’t fallen behind in learning the art of a few of his own techniques. This seems the time again for him to clinch a gold medal, thus making it a French victory to hail the Olympics this year a success for the country.
The competition for the +100 kg category in Judo is scheduled to take place on Friday the 3rd of August, starting off at 9:30 in the morning and concluding with the final medal-winning match at 4:30 in the evening. A break of 90 minutes in between this interval would break the series just after the quarterfinals, so as to separate the contestants for the bronze medal. All initial rounds will be elimination rounds jumping from round of 64 to round of 32, and so on. The venue for Judo is selected to be the ExCel exhibition centre in London.
There are athletes who strive, bit by bit, to reach the summit of their career. Tony Estanguet has followed that line by proving a win with a margin of just twelve hundredths of a second to bag his last Olympic gold medal in Athens back in 2004. His first Olympic victory was in 2000, after which he has 12 medals in canoe slalom world championships to his credit. His career growth can be easily traced in the ICF World championships too, as he escalated his achievements one after the other from bronze to silver, and then finally cementing his streak for gold medals in 2006, 2009 and 2010 respectively.
Tony hails from a family of canoeists; his father Henri Estanguet and brother Patrice Estanguet have both represented France at international competitions. His contribution for French representation in the European championships has reaped success every single appearance, winning 10 medals while becoming the champion for the World Cup individual titles in 2003 and 2004. He is expected to hit it out at the current 2012 London Olympics as well in Slalom canoeing individual category, scheduled to occur on the 29th and the 31st of July at the Lee Valley White Water Centre.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.