“One nail does not drive out another nail,” warns judoka Niko Sherazadishvili. A hypothetical success in Paris would not make him forget “the painful lesson” of Tokyo, where he was left without a medal when everyone had awarded him the gold before time. He too. “It was almost impossible to lose because of the difference with the rest,” he admits even today, carrying a backpack that he assures will never disappear. But the unthinkable happened. Defeated, he left with his family for Georgia, where he is from (he was born in Tbilisi 28 years ago), and for a month he pondered whether it was worth continuing. “I considered quitting, I felt bad about myself,” he confesses. He did not share these thoughts with anyone, he devoured everything himself, until he concluded that, despite the great fiasco, judo was part of his life. “It was connecting with the simple: I practice it because I like it,” he says. That basic.
That was the zero kilometer of Niko’s Olympic cycle, the most famous face of Spanish judo in recent years, now competing with Fran Garrigós. With his bronze, Pinchito took this desert sport out of 24 years without Olympic medals and on Thursday, starting at 10:00, it is time for this judoka with a Herculean body, the second great asset among the nine classified. [este lunes, Salva Cases (-73 kilos) cayó en octavos]This time, gold is no longer an obligation for him, as his dominance is not the same as before in Japan, although he remains on the list of major contenders for the medal. On the Champ de Mars in Paris, any gold medal could do for Shera, regardless of its colour.
After Tokyo, I considered quitting judo; I felt bad about myself.
While digesting Tokyo, he had to adapt to the change in weight (from -90 to -100 kilos), and suffered one of the worst injuries: a torn cruciate ligament in his right knee that kept him out between December 2022 and September 2023. “But that wasn’t hard. The worst thing is losing, it kills me,” he points out. “You fall seven times and get up eight. With this mentality, I’m one step ahead of the rest,” he highlights about this cycle.
Finally deciding to continue after his time of introspection in Georgia, he immediately found relief: he no longer had to go hungry. “Now I eat everything that enters my body, although always healthy things,” he explains. His fight has been to gain weight until he reached his goal of 104-105. “When I can no longer eat anything, I have oatmeal shakes with nuts, for example. Drinking is easier than eating,” he explains.
Losing five kilos in a week is nothing for us
Those 105 kilos are his daily routine, except when he steps on the scales before competing. Then, like everyone else, he does the accordion: quickly go down to 100 (in his case) to get back to the starting weight even more quickly. “The week before, we cut back on dinner a little and in the last two days, on water. And if we need to, at the last minute we go into the sauna or run with plastics to sweat. Losing five kilos in a week is nothing for us. But at the moment we weigh in, we have 14-16 hours.” [hasta el combate] “We have to go back to our level. It’s enough time to gain five kilos, for example, with food, isotonic drinks or supplements. In competition, one kilo can be a lot,” says Sherazadishvili about a routine process for them.
Double world champion in -90 (2018 and 2021), the jump to -100 gave him relief in front of the table but also involved an inevitable toll of adaptation on the tatami to new rivals. “People know what I am capable of, but I am not so much in the spotlight. My difference with the rest in -90 was something else,” says this big body raised in Quino Ruiz’s gym, in the peace of Brunete (Madrid), the same one where Garrigós’ medal came from.
20 years ago you went to the psychologist and people thought you were crazy. Now it’s the other way around.
Despite what happened in Tokyo, he believes that his head is one of his greatest advantages. “I feel that I am superior there. I know where my rivals fail, some are afraid, they give up when they reach extreme fatigue,” explains Niko, who says that sometimes he has lost due to “overconfidence.” Now, he has also learned to enjoy it more. “If I get a bronze, perfect. Before I was such a perfectionist that I would win and not be happy. I wanted to dominate everything,” he says.
A mental journey that, contrary to the current trend, he has made without a psychologist. “Twenty years ago you would say you were going to a psychologist and they thought you were crazy. Now it is the other way around. Almost everyone recommends it to me, except my friends and coach. I have them. Sometimes, things are simpler than they seem. I don’t know if I would be able to confess to a psychologist,” he explains.
At 28, Paris once again presents Niko Sherazadishvili with another opportunity.
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