Olympic competition carries an aura of significance by its nature, but sometimes events transcend into the territory of legends. Saturday’s mixed team judo medal round was one of those instances and it resulted in gold (Amandine Buchard of France) and bronze (Rafaela Silva of Brazil) medals for the Team LGBTQ medal count.
France and Japan delivered a gold medal match for the ages that caused the roof of Champ-de-Mars Arena to metaphorically lift off its supports when the French squad came back from a 3-1 deficit in the six-on-six, first to four wins contest, to repeat as gold medalists.
Japan came into the match looking for revenge after France defeated them at the Tokyo Games in mixed team judo’s Olympic debut three years prior. After dropping the first two contests to Japan, iconic French judoka Teddy Riner put his team on the board, defeating Tatsuru Saito in golden score sudden death in what was thought to be his final match in international competition.
Riner’s teammates Joan-Benjamin Gaba and Clarisse Agbegnenou scored back-to-back golden score wins in the fifth and sixth fights of the match, with Gaba defeating 2024 66k gold medalist Hifumi Abe to tie the match 3-3 and force a golden score seventh match.
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For those unfamiliar with the event structure, the weight class and entrants for the seventh match in team judo are determined by random draw, which made it all the sweeter for the French crowd when the spinning wheel on the arena’s video screens landed on +90k: Riner’s weight class.
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The five-time Olympic gold medalist stepped onto the tatami again for likely the final time against Saito and went an additional 6 minutes and 26 seconds with the Japanese superheavyweight before scoring an ippon. The moment left Riner lying on the tatami in exhausted bliss as all of Team France celebrated and wept on the arena floor.
The win gave out LGBTQ judoka Buchard her second Olympic gold medal in mixed team judo, her second medal at the Paris Games and her fourth Olympic medal overall.
The bronze medal match between Brazil and Italy that opened the medal round provided its own drama and moment of LGBTQ glory. Brazilian out LGBTQ judoka Rafaela Silva scored a win to put her team up 3-1 in the fourth fight of the match only to see her teammates Willian Lima and Ketleyn Quadros drop the next two fights to force a golden score sudden death seventh bout.
Silva’s weight class emerged from the random draw and she made quick work of Veronica Toniolo the second time around, submitting her with an armbar in 14 seconds to give Brazil its first medal in the event’s young history.
The Italian loss denied Italian out LGBTQ judoka Alice Bellandi from adding another medal to her Paris Games collection after winning the 70kg gold earlier this week.
The other bronze medal match barely missed out on Olympic history as Germany succumbed to the Republic of Korea in yet another golden score seventh fight. A German win would have made out gay judoka Timo Cavelius the first out LGBTQ male judoka ever to win an Olympic medal.
