Teddy Riner
The giant who went a decade without losing
- Born
- April 7, 1989, Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, France
- Nationality
France- Height
- 204 cm (6′8″)
- Stance
- Right
- Style
- High-volume attacking heavyweight
- Weight
- +100 kg, Open
- Active
- 2007–present
- Status
- Active · age 37
The record
154 straight winsUnbeaten in competition from late 2010 until February 2020, when Kokoro Kageura beat him at the Paris Grand Slam.
3 individual Olympic golds (+2 mixed-team golds), 11 individual world titles
The story
orn in Guadeloupe and raised in Paris, Teddy Riner won the world heavyweight title in Rio de Janeiro in 2007 at just 18, beating Olympic champion Kosei Inoue on the way. At 2.04 m he pairs size with an unusually high attacking workload, and from late 2010 to February 2020 he did not lose a single match, a run of 154 wins that Japan's Kokoro Kageura finally ended in Paris. He has 11 individual world titles, three Olympic heavyweight golds (2012, 2016, 2024), two Olympic bronzes and two mixed-team golds. At the Paris Games he lit the Olympic cauldron and then won gold in front of a home crowd. He has re-signed with Paris Saint-Germain with Los Angeles 2028 as his stated final target.
Tap a technique with an arrow to learn how it works.
- Olympic champion, +100 kg (2012, 2016, 2024)
- Olympic mixed-team champion (2020, 2024)
- World champion, +100 kg (2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2023)
- World openweight champion (2008, 2017)
- European champion, +100 kg (2007, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016)
- Knight of the Legion of Honour (2013)
- L'Équipe French Sportsman of the Year (2012, 2016, 2017)
- Lit the Paris 2024 Olympic cauldron with Marie-José Pérec
Defining matches
- 2007WINvs Kosei Inoue (World Championships semi-final; went on to win the title at 18)
- 2012WINvs Alexander Mikhaylin (London Olympic +100 kg final)
- 2016WINvs Hisayoshi Harasawa (Rio Olympic +100 kg final)
- 2020LOSSvs Kokoro Kageura (Paris Grand Slam; ended his 154-match win streak)
- 2024WINvs Kim Min-jong (Paris Olympic +100 kg final, third individual gold)
Chain ouchi gari into osoto gari: drive the inside reap until the opponent steps back and plants, then reap the leg that has just taken their weight. Riner also out-works opponents, so build the conditioning to attack more often than the person in front of you.
