“A few months before the Games, it’s the mess of the boycott, we go there, we don’t go there… Finally Giscard (president of the Republic at the time) accepts that the CNOSF goes there, which leaves the federations to choose and judo goes there. I was afraid of not competing because I was world champion six months before (December 1979), I had won two Paris tournaments and it was an opportunity to make history. So I set off on a mission to win the Games. That summer, I weighed 68 kg and I had to do 60, so my first battle was to lose weight.
I decide to leave late. When Angelo (Parisi, Olympic champion) wins, I am still at home in Lagny-sur-Marne. I return to Moscow on Wednesday, after a night in Orly. DTN Pierre Guichard is waiting for me. We go to the village and there, obviously, I weigh myself: I have 2.2 kg to lose. I fight two days later, on Friday morning. On Thursday July 31, I will run at the village athletics stadium. It’s crazy hot, I see Sebastian Coe and many other athletes in shorts; I’m in a sweatshirt, K-Way hoodie, three tracksuits. I run laps to sweat, it’s my obsession.
Friday morning, I wake up alone at 5:30 a.m., I put on my tracksuit, I weigh myself, I have 1.2 kg left to lose. I go out and there is no one, only guys with Kalashnikovs at the bottom of the village building. I go to the stadium and I turn, the sky is blue and with each step, I say to myself “this is the last time in your life that you are going to weigh 60 kg”. I’m Rocky when he walks up his stairs. I run for 35-40 minutes and then let it flow. I meet at 7 a.m. for the official weigh-in and I weigh 59.965 kg. Obviously, I checked before because you are only allowed to weigh yourself once.
“That summer, I weighed 68 kg and I had to do 60, so my first fight was to lose weight”
The competition arrives at 9 a.m. and I warm up the bike. It’s okay, I feel pretty sharp. After a Finn and a Portuguese, I met the Russian Emizh. This is our fifth meeting since the first at the Paris Tournament where, at 18 years old, I had never encountered such a block. I put my special uchi mata on him, I manage the whole fight and I win. And then there is a huge break of four or five hours and we return to the village.
I know that I have to meet a Cuban (Rodriguez) in the final. I eat, I drink, I sleep and I have a kind of relief saying “there’s going to be this fucking cleaver match”. I get ready, I’m in my bubble and as I leave, I say to myself “hey, I’m going to weigh myself”: 64.8 kg. I arrive at the stadium, I warm up and think about these 5-7 minutes where you play for your life. If you finish 2nd, it’s not the same thing. There’s something that’s going to happen for eternity.
With the Cuban, it’s funny because I had a fight that was completely unnatural, that is to say I was very careful. I was an attacker, I packed the matches, I went to look for the guys and there, I paid close attention to everything, I didn’t take any risks, I countered him, which I don’t do. Never. I control everything down to the millimeter, I am a machine.
At one point, there is a passage to the ground, I miss it but I dominate and I manage everything because I don’t want to do anything stupid. I have the advantage and come those few seconds at the end, my parents are there, I’m like “fuck that’s it”. I have a matte five or six seconds from the end, the Cuban is in front and I know that I just have to turn. I enter something else, this passage where you realize your dream, you have the serenity that touches you, you are yourself. Afterwards I explode with joy, I raise my arms, I fall into the arms of my friends.
“I didn’t have the Marseillaise on the podium (…) I had the Olympic anthem, it’s not the same thing”
I didn’t get the Marseillaise on the podium. The team that traveled to the Games was the Judo Federation representing the French Olympic Committee and not France. I had the Olympic anthem, it’s not the same thing. You don’t embody your country and we are very attached to that, the judokas. I go to my fighting brothers who are Bernard Tchoullouyan, my master, my coaches Jean-Paul Coche and Serge Feist. Above all, there is this feeling of having put the seal, of being tattooed. I put a brand on myself that will never be removed. I was the first world champion to be Olympic champion, I was 21 years old.
In the evening, in the apartment, we drink half-hot beers. I’m done, it’s midnight. I have not had any media requests. President Giscard d’Estaing? He didn’t want us to go to the Games so… I didn’t make the front page of L’Équipe. Then, when after six championships I became European champion in Paris in 1983, I invented a kind of esoteric family, the FEMO: people who are French, European, world and Olympic champions. There are very few FEMOs in France. Tony Estanguet (boss of Paris 2024) is one, for example”
2024-04-09 09:19:22
#day #special #Olympics #Thierry #Rey #brand #hot #iron
