One of the high points last week at the OTP IJF 2025 World Ju­do Cham­pi­onships held in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary was meet­ing Ted­dy Riner con­sid­ered by many to be the great­est Ju­do­ka in his­to­ry. He was at one time un­de­feat­ed for ten straight years.

The 36-year-old, an im­pos­ing fig­ure at six feet eight inch­es, was born in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guade­loupe. Guade­loupe, a French Caribbean Is­land, is a mem­ber of the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC) and brave­ly host­ed the first-ever CANOC Caribbean Games from June 29-Ju­ly 3, 2022.

Dur­ing our con­ver­sa­tion, he and I spoke about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of him com­ing to T&T to share his knowl­edge with Ju­do Trinidad and To­ba­go. The con­ver­sa­tion wasn't on­ly about ju­do in the Caribbean. Car­ni­val al­so came up as he in­di­cat­ed he had been to "Car­ni­val" in Bar­ba­dos. Nat­u­ral­ly, I said that Trinidad Car­ni­val is the moth­er of all car­ni­vals and sug­gest­ed a vis­it to Trinidad Car­ni­val should his busy sched­ule per­mit.

Riner has a charis­ma and pres­ence that is in­spi­ra­tional. His ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the Caribbean, his "Caribbeaness", is com­pelling. He has not for­got­ten where he came from. He is a hero in Guade­loupe and France. I came away from my in­ter­ac­tion with him feel­ing a re­newed sense of pur­pose and mo­ti­va­tion.

There are a num­ber of lessons in Riner's back­sto­ry. Af­ter try­ing out in foot­ball, bas­ket­ball and ten­nis, he choose Ju­do.

He rep­re­sents Paris Saint Ger­main (PSG) Ju­do in France (Yes! same PSG that won this year's UE­FA Cham­pi­ons League) and once told French news­pa­per Le Monde: "I doubt my­self all the time.

"My teams around me don't un­der­stand it. It's quite sim­ple, I con­stant­ly ques­tion my­self. No mat­ter how many times you tell me I'm the best, in my eyes, I'm not. Doubt fu­els me, and I over­come it."

Riner, a five-time Olympic cham­pi­on be­came the most dec­o­rat­ed ju­do­ka in the his­to­ry of the Olympic Games, win­ning gold in the men’s +100kg and the mixed team event in Paris.

The sev­en-time Olympic medal­list is aim­ing to give him­self the best chance of be­ing on the podi­um at the Los An­ge­les 2028 Olympic Games.

Riner was present in the stands sup­port­ing his French team­mates and tak­ing part in the medal cer­e­mo­ny for the +100kg cat­e­go­ry.

The 11-time in­di­vid­ual world cham­pi­on is fo­cused on mak­ing a re­turn to com­pe­ti­tion fol­low­ing surgery on his right el­bow. A re­cov­ery process that has seen his com­pet­i­tive re­turn pushed back sev­er­al times.

“I was sup­posed to be back in Ju­ly 2025, but we’re re­al­ly tak­ing our time. As I’ve said, com­ing back from surgery isn’t easy. Af­ter all these years, I want to re­turn prop­er­ly, with the right mind­set and the right fit­ness. You have to give it time. It’s com­ing back, slow­ly but sure­ly,” Riner told the press at the Lás­zló Papp Are­na.

Here are a few re­minders I took away from my close en­counter with the leg­endary Ted­dy Riner- achiev­ing ex­tra­or­di­nary things is about do­ing or­di­nary things with pa­tience, dis­ci­pline, hu­mil­i­ty, hard work and an in­domitable will to over­come ob­sta­cles.

Hav­ing per­se­ver­ance, re­silience and clar­i­ty of pur­pose but it's al­so about the sys­tem and cul­ture. Riner has been train­ing full-time for two decades. He start­ed Ju­do at the age of five years. Since the age of 15, he has trained at IN­SEP (France Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Sport, Ex­per­tise, and Per­for­mance), a high-per­for­mance cen­tre for elite ath­letes.