Olympics-Judo-France's Riner suffers shock defeat in hunt for 3rd straight judo gold

The 32-year-old double Olympic champion, one of the biggest names in the sport, was aiming for a third consecutive gold to match a record held by Japanese great Tadahiro Nomura. But Riner, sporting a beard and a shaved head, lost to the ROC's Bashaev after suffering a sumi-otoshi waza-ari throw in 'Golden Score' sudden-death overtime.

French heavyweight judoka Teddy Riner suffered a shock defeat on Friday, losing to Tamerlan Bashaev of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) team in the men's judo +100 kg division and bowing out from the gold medal race in the quarter-finals. The 32-year-old double Olympic champion, one of the biggest names in the sport, was aiming for a third consecutive gold to match a record held by Japanese great Tadahiro Nomura.

But Riner, sporting a beard and a shaved head, lost to the ROC's Bashaev after suffering a Sumi-otoshi waza-ari throw in 'Golden Score' sudden-death overtime. Friday's defeat followed a surprise loss last year when Riner, 10-time world champion, lost for the first time in nearly a decade. Japan's Kokoro Kageura ended Riner's 154-match winning streak, going back to 2010, in the Paris Grand Slam.

Riner will take part in a repechage contest, facing Rafael Silva of Brazil in the afternoon session that kicks off at 0800 GMT, but the best he could hope for would be a bronze medal. Earlier he had advanced into the quarter-finals with ease, taking out Austrian Stephan Hegyi with a dynamic inner-thigh-throw ippon victory in a round of 32 bouts that lasted little more than 2 minutes.

In the round of 16, Riner beat Or Sasson of Israel with a back-fall reversal for a waza-ari win. Elsewhere, Japanese judokas Akira Sone and Hisayoshi Harasawa both made their way into semi-finals for the women's +78 kg and the men's +100 kg respectively, raising hope for the host country to secure a record haul of gold medals from the sport in Tokyo.

Harasawa, 29, Rio Olympics silver medallist, defeated Kim Min-jong of South Korea in the eliminations round of 16 with a skillful o-uchi-gari throw for a waza-ari win. He went on to beat Yakiv Khammo of Ukraine with his specialty uchi-mata inner thigh throw for an ippon win in sudden death overtime.

Harasawa will face Czech Lukas Krpalek in the semi-finals. ROC's Bashaev and Georgian Guram Tushishvili will also compete in the semis later on Friday. In the women's +78kg category, Akira Sone, Olympics debutant and world champion in the heaviest category for women executed Tai-otoshi body drop against Raz Hershko of Israel for an ippon win in the best 16.

The 21-year-old also beat Turkey's Kayra Sayit by a combination of two waza-aris - one throw, the other pin - to make it an ippon win in the quarter-finals. Sone will face Azerbaijani Iryna Kindzerska in the semi-finals, and Idalys Ortíz of Cuba and Romanehas Dicko of France will face each other in the semis.