Jean-Baptiste Sarrazin, with AFP
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10:44 p.m., February 20, 2023
A conflict broke out between the French Judo Federation and judokate Clarisse Agbegnenou during the Grand Slam in Tel Aviv (Israel) on Friday. The double Olympic champion, sponsored by Mizuno, refuses to wear the kimono of the French team, partner of Adidas. A decision to which the Federation responded: the latter deprived her of her referent coach in the France team.
“I’m really overwhelmed by the situation. I’m outraged by the lack of respect I’m being accorded,” she told AFP. “I’m an athlete, I want to defend my titles, return to competition, show that anything is possible. And what’s stopping me is my own federation. It’s very serious.” Clarisse Agbegnenou, who was returning to Grand Slam after her maternity leave, appeared on the tatami with a kimono from her personal sponsor, the Mizuno brand, while the French Judo Federation signed a partnership with Adidas.
Federation Sponsor
The double Olympic champion justified her choice by explaining that she had not fought with an Adidas kimono for more than five years and that she therefore preferred to compete with a kimono that she knew. Adidas indeed succeeded Mizuno as equipment supplier to the Federation in 2021, just before the 30-year-old judoka’s maternity leave.
But “every year, the athletes sign an agreement with the Federation which pays a substantial sum, via the Ministry of Sports, to the athletes”, recalls Céline Géraud in Europe 1 Sports. Judokas are therefore required to wear the sponsor assigned by the Federation.
Clarisse Agbegnenou defends herself: “They could have said to me: ‘Listen Clarisse, it’s complicated, it’s not our equipment supplier. We know that you don’t know the kimono so we can pass it on to you to try it on and as that you can see if you can fight with it.’ (But) they did not bring me any solution”, she regretted.
Federation sanction
To sanction Agbegnenou’s choice to wear a personal kimono, the Federation had decided to deprive her of her federal coach for the competition. “Telling me the night before that I will be deprived of a coach because of my kimono is childish. I find it really unfortunate and I tell myself that they could have been more adult,” she said.
“They could have said to themselves, ‘it’s only a competition, it’s not the World Championships, it’s not the Olympic Games, it’s her return, we leave her'”, she said. for follow-up. “Put on the kimono of another equipment manufacturer, it puts us in overhang, I find that it is not to respect the French team”, declared Friday the president of the Federation Stéphane Nomis.
“What I told him is that we sit down, we write an agreement, we make you a proposal, you come back to us and we do it properly, calmly. That was my speech a week ago , not the day before. We did not take her hostage”, he added, denouncing the “aggressiveness” of the entourage of the judoka.
Clarisse Agbegnenou is due to meet Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra next Monday. A meeting that could unblock the situation and that would put the judoka back on track before the world championships which will have him in Doha from May 7 to 14.