At the OTP Bank World Judo Championships Hungary, any hint of commentary focusing on his luck in Paris or the home-ground advantage was silenced, concretely. What could be more indicative of a consistent and improving judoka than an Olympic silver medal followed immediately by the world gold? Luck is not the secret ingredient, hard work is! Joan-Benjamin Gaba says, “Once can be luck, twice cannot be.”
Gaba is happy to talk about his new title and also about the years that preceded it, including the Olympic Games.
The first question, one that was on everyone’s mind after his world championship final on Sunday, is what is the ’T’?
“It’s a sign that we, our training group, created which symbolises determination. In French we say ‘mentalité and the sound of the end of the word is ‘te.’
Our group has been together since 2020 when we were all juniors, 9 of us with coach Stéphane Fremont. The group has a special work ethic and we always push our limits; the one goal is to win gold. We train hard in the mind and body and always with a good spirit. We have each other to elevate ourselves. Romain’s silver medal, he was a bit disappointed with it because he wanted to be the first of us to do it but everyone is happy for each other. The name of the group, that we gave ourselves from the beginning is ‘Special Forces.’”
Gaba has made 14 grand slam appearances but still has no medal and yet at the biggest events he is able to cut through it all and reach the podium. Why is that? Is that by design?
Joan laughs as he here’s the question, “Only big competitions can galvanise me in that way, bringing this winning state. It must be that I need the big championships to transcend myself; the grand slams are for training. It happens this way, I don’t know exactly why, but I find the resources to be an animal when I really need to be.
The medal is the reward for the daily hard work and there is a lot of pride in it. The feeling of losing is so bad so I do everything to not feel it. I want to enjoy the incredible feeling of the win.”
These big wins are now finding consistency among the French men’s team. Valadier Picard is now a world medallist, Gaba and Ngayap Hambou have Olympic medals already and now Gaba is world champion. So, when asked who has been most influential in his career so far, the answer was already predicted.
“Stephane! I can say so much about him but most of all he makes me think differently about how to train better and think better, how to think about the fight ahead of me. He doesn’t tell us what to do but how to analyse and think for ourselves. He makes us find how to win, not giving us the keys to instant access but ensuring we have the tools we need.”
Joan-Benjamin Gaba is using and improving his arsenal well and his medal tally reflects that. He is becoming one of the biggest names in French judo and with so many champions in the history of the sport in France, it is a real privilege to watch him ascend the ranks. In Budapest, after his victory, he was joined by France’s first ever world champion, Jen-Luc Rougé, winner in 1975 in Vienna, exactly 50 years ago.
In Budapest Gaba won France’s 60th world championship gold medal but it was their first ever in the -73 kg category (including the years when it was -71 kg). It is a special moment and one the whole team can savour.