David Douillet
David Donald Hubert Roger Douillet is a French politician and retired judoka.
Douillet won two consecutive gold medals at the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and Sydney competing in the heavyweight division. He is also a four-time judo world champion and one-time European champion. These achievements make him one of the most decorated judoka in history. After his sporting career, he was involved alongside Bernadette Chirac in the charity Opération Pièces Jaunes. He also became a consulting sportsman for Canal+. He was elected deputy to the French National Assembly on 18 October 2009 and on 26 September 2011 became the new Sports Minister until May 2012.
Sporting career
Early career
David Douillet began judo at age 11, in the commune of Neufchâtel-en-Bray, near his birthplace of Rouen. Having exceptional physical size for someone his age, he was instructed by Jacques Lemaître who taught him the rudiments of the sport. Quickly becoming attracted to the Japanese martial art, he distinguished himself on the tatamis, and thanks to his good academic results, integrated the study of the sport at the school Victor et Hélène Basch, near the University of Rennes. In 1986, when Douillet was 17, he was noticed during a demonstration by Jean-Luc Rougé who brought him into the INSEP.Consequently, the young David could devote himself to his passion, while continuing his education in the Paris region, Maisons-Alfort, and involving himself at the INSEP facility of Bois de Vincennes, the coterie of elite and promising French judokas. There, he met his idol Fabien Canu, double world champion in 1987 and 1989. With strength and drive, Douillet obtained his first awards in his age class. In 1988, he became French junior champion, then obtained fifth place at the European championships. Rising again to the top of the national standings in 1989, he captured the European bronze medal in Athens, again as a junior.
Among the world elite
After a period of adaptation, he won his first Senior French championship in 1991, imposing himself in the final against Georges Mathonnet, another hope for French judo, born two years before Douillet. Thanks to this first national title, David qualified for his first senior European championships in Prague, where he finished in third place, a real achievement for a 22-year-old at his first selection. A few weeks later, he disputed the military world championships, where he earned two medals. At the beginning of 1992, he successfully defended his national title in the heavyweight category. Selected for the European Championships, which were held in Paris, in May 1992, he shone in a decisive competition obtaining a qualification for the Barcelona 1992 Summer Olympics, which took place in July of the same year: during these European championships, he obtained the bronze medal, synonymous with an Olympic ticket for Spain.He faced a hard bracket during the Olympic tournament with the German Henry Stöhr, and the Japanese Naoya Ogawa. Not succeeding in carrying a frank attack on the Frenchman, Stöhr, neutralized, was disqualified for uncombativeness. However, a movement of the legs by Ogawa, in the next fight, put Douillet ippon, and the French judoka out for the gold medal race. He could, however, still hope for bronze. Facing the Cuban Franck Moreno Garcia, in the bout for third place, the Frenchman imposed himself. The judoka won the bronze medal at 23 years old.
World and European achievements
First International Games
In search of confirmation after his Olympic bronze medal, David Douillet ambitiously approached his first participation in a world championship. It was in Hamilton, Ontario, that the French judoka hoped to carry out a winning performance. Having defeated several experienced judokas, like the Polish Rafał Kubacki, he finally beat the Olympic champion and champion of Europe David Khakhaleishvili, then ranked #1 in the world and logical favourite of the tournament. He then took his revenge on the Georgian who, a few months earlier, had beaten him at the European championships. Thanks to this title acquired at 24 years, he becomes the first French world champion in this weight class, regarded by some as the premier category of judo. It is in this same weight class that he gained his first European title the following year in the 1994 European Judo Championships at Gdańsk, Poland, by defeating Rafał Kubacki in the final bout.Chiba 1995: for the double
In view of the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics, the 1995 World Judo Championships in Chiba, Japan constituted an obligatory preparatory stage to participate in the American Olympics. A good performance being a great step towards an Olympic medal, Douillet was planning to defend his world title gained two years earlier in Canada. But this time, he competed at the same time in his weight class and in the open category. In the first, the Frenchman made a display of his class, by winning each of his fights by ippon. Having beaten the Japanese quadruple world champion Naoya Ogawa, then the Spaniard Ernesto Pérez in the semi-final, he finally triumphed over the German Frank Möller by ippon, after less than 2 minutes of fighting, and retained his title.Three days later, Douillet repeated his performance in the open category, by beating in the final the Russian Sergei Kossorotov by an pin. Thanks to the heavyweight title, he became the second Frenchman to preserve his world title after Fabien Canu in 1980, and placed himself as the legitimate favourite for the Olympic Games. Furthermore, with his double win, Douillet entered the history books of judo, becoming the third judoka to carry out this exploit after Yasuhiro Yamashita in 1981 and Naoya Ogawa in 1989. Carrying out this exploit in Japan, and equalling the performances of two native stars, made him an instant icon in Japan.
Dedication
Olympic title
Selected for Atlanta the 1996 Summer Olympics, he was the favourite due to the three world titles won since his inaugural Olympic participation in 1992. Douillet passed the first matches without difficulties by eliminating the Belgian Van Barneveld, the Luxembourger Müller, and the Austrian Krieger. The Frenchman then fought the semi-final against the Japanese Naoya Ogawa, who had beaten him at the same stage of the 1992 Olympic tournament. This tight fight, styled as the "final before the final" by the French, was won by Douillet, who punched his ticket for the Olympic final against the Spaniard Ernesto Pérez Lobo. Against a judoka that he had already overcome during the last world championships, the world champion took the contest in hand, and, thanks to an Uchi-mata, obtained an irreversible advantage which enabled him to take the Olympic title. Thus, he became the first French judoka to win the gold medal in the reigning category of judo, and the fourth Olympic champion to do it within all categories. During the award ceremony it was the Dutch Anton Geesink, Olympic champion in 1964, who gave the medal to Douillet.Douillet had to wait until 1997 to claim his proper Olympic medal that he won the previous year. The American organizers of the Atlanta Games had reversed the ceremonies of handing-over of the medals for the male and female competitions. Thus Dutch Anton Geesink, Olympic champion of the Open category in 1964, gave to the French judoka the medal intended for the Chinese judokate Fuming Sun, Olympic champion of the women heavyweights. It was in Paris, at the time of the 1997 World Judo Championships, that the various actors were brought together once again to receive the right medals.
Between victories and injuries
On 30 September 1996, two months after the Olympic title captured in Atlanta, Douillet was seriously injured in the calf and the right shoulder in a motorbike accident. The long convalescence, and eight months of rehabilitation, actually reinvigorated the Frenchman and gave him new motivation after his gold medal:This accident rekindled my desire. After Atlanta, I had the impression of having made it. I had gained a lot... Then, after the accident, I had a new challenge: to become again first an athlete, then a performing athlete.
Thus, he returned gradually to his ideal shape and joined again the competition, at the time of the Mediterranean Games, which took place in June 1997 in Bari, Italy. He made a good show and earned a medal by defeating the European champion, Selim Tataroğlu. More than this victory, it was the prospect of the world championships, organized in Paris, which intensified Douillet's return to the foreground. The judoka carried out serious preparations in hopes of obtaining a fourth world title. In the competition, Douillet qualified for the final by defeating once again the Turkish Selim Tataroğlu in the semi-finals. In the finals, he beat the Japanese Shinichi Shinohara by disqualification. This victory, giving him a third world crown, tied Douillet with another Japanese athlete, Yasuhiro Yamashita, and closed a difficult post-Atlanta period marked not only by his motorbike accident, but also by financial problems related to bad investments. However, a pain in the shoulder forced him to withdraw once again from the tatamis after the world championship in Paris, and in August 1998, he was the victim of a distortion of the wrist, and withdrew from competition for several months.