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.^[8] 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.^[9] A good performance being a great step towards an Olympic medal, David 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 (heavyweight, in +95 kg) and in the open category (a category without weight limit). 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.^[10]

Three days later, Douillet repeated his performance in the open category, by beating in the final the Russian Sergei Kossorotov by an pin.^[11] 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, David 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.^[12] Carrying out this exploit in Japan, and equalling the performances of two native stars, made David Douillet an instant icon in Japan.

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,^[13] 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 (mowing by the interior of the thigh), obtained an irreversible advantage which enabled him to take the Olympic title.^[14] 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.

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.^[15]

Thus, he returned gradually to his ideal shape (approximately 125 kg) 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.^[16] This victory, giving him a third world crown (fourth with the Open title in 1995), 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.^[17] 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.

Difficult return to competition

In spite of almost two years of inactivity in competition, he was selected for the 1999 European Judo Championships in Bratislava. He had a sub-par performance there, taking only seventh place, letting his main competitors gain the podium.^[18] Nevertheless, the Frenchman started his preparation for a historic second Olympic title at the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. The principal stage of this preparation was the participation in the 1999 World Judo Championships in Birmingham. However, David Douillet underwent a large disappointment, being forced to withdraw two days before the beginning of the competition because of a groin strain.^[19] The months that followed were troubled by new physical problems with his back. While this was not the ideal way to prepare for his return, one and half months before the Olympic event he participated in a competition in Bonn,^[20] where he was beaten in the semi-final by the German Frank Möller and took third place. This was a minor but essential competition in his road back to high-level,^[21] a comeback considered encouraging by his trainer Marc Alexandre, who did not entirely hide his concerns, however, due to the delay in his preparation caused by David's repetitive injuries.

Historic double

In spite of the doubts concerning his physical condition, David Douillet was present in Sydney, Australia, for the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympics. Even more, the judoka was nominated to be the flag carrier of the French delegation by the CNOSF (Olympic and sporting National committee French), thus succeeding the athlete Marie-José Pérec.^[22][23]

On 22 September 2000, the judo tournament started, and David Douillet entered the heavyweight competition to try to become the most titled Judoka in history.^[24] After winning his first match on a no-show from the Venezuelan Douglas Cardozo (he was not present at the weighing before the competition^[25]), the Frenchman faced the Turk Selim Tataroğlu, recent vice-champion of Europe (Open), and multiple medal-holder in the World Judo Championships. The Frenchman, however, beat him by ippon thanks to an o-uchi-gari (great interior mowing), and qualified for the quarter-finals where he faced the Belgian Harry van Barneveld, bronze medal winner four years before in Atlanta. Again Douillet passed this round thanks to the disqualification of his adversary (hansoku-make). Next, he went to fight against the Estonian Indrek Pertelson with a shot at the final. Pertelson, the world vice-champion, was quickly dispatched by the Frenchman on an ippon in less one minute.

In the final, his adversary was the Japanese Shinichi Shinohara, double champion of the world in 1999. That game is seen as a revenge of the 1997 World Judo Championships finals, where Douillet had beaten the Japanese heavyweight.^[26] The confrontation between the two judokas was extremely tactical, and it was only after one and a half minutes that the Frenchman took the lead thanks to a mowing by the interior of the thigh (uchi-subdued).^[27] The referee decision allotted a yuko to Douillet, a decision disputed by Shinohara, who argued that he dodged and then countered the Frenchman.^[28] However, the head referee was not moved, and Shinohara did not manage to make up for this lost time. After five minutes of fight, David Douillet was finally able to win his second Olympic gold medal.^[29] This was also a victory for the Judo history books as he became the fighter with the most international titles.^[30] With six major international titles (2 Olympic titles, 4 world titles), he passed the Japanese Yasuhiro Yamashita (1 Olympic title, 4 world titles) who won his titles in the seventies. The Olympic tournament in Sydney, however, marked the end of the road for the French judoka, who immediately announced his retirement after the competition, he won 88 matches and lost 21.^[31]

On judo

The French judoka is no longer the record Olympic title-holder, since the Japanese Tadahiro Nomura won his third consecutive title in 2004 in Athens. However, he retains a dominating place at the top of the world's judo. He is one of the five male judokas (except Nomura) to have gained two Olympic titles, but thanks to his bronze medal obtained in 1992 in Barcelona, he is the only one besides Nomura and Angelo Parisi to have gained three Olympic medals. With regard to the World Judo Championships, David Douillet is now the 3rd most titled judoka along with three other Japanese athletes. He is also one of the only two judokas who own three world champion titles in the heavyweight class, the other being Yasuhiro Yamashita (both are far behind Teddy Riner's 7 titles). These achievements make the Frenchman one of the greatest judoka in history.

On French sport

Thanks to his second Olympic title acquired in Sydney, he was proclaimed for the second time in 2000 Champion of the champions français by the French sporting daily newspaper L'Équipe. This recognition is all the more remarkable because it came ahead of both Brahim Asloum, the first French Olympic champion of boxing since 1936, and the leader of the France national football team Zinedine Zidane, who just won the European championship.^[32]

In 2005, he was one of the flag carriers for the unsuccessful bid of Paris 2012 for the organization of the 2012 Summer Olympics. David Douillet also fought against doping and joined, in 1999, the council of martial arts and prevention against doping.^[33] Recognized on the international scene, he is one of the forty sporting personalities, members of the academy, of the Laureus World Awards' Sports since its founding in 1999.^[34]