PARIS (AP) — French judo star Teddy Riner wants to end his stellar career with a fourth individual Olympic gold medal at the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
The 2.04-meter (6-foot-8) heavyweight will be 39 years old then and, if he qualifies, it would be his sixth and final Olympics.
“Of course that's an objective,” Riner said Wednesday. “I think up until now I've proved that every time I take part in an event it's for the top step of the podium (for) the most beautiful of medals. If I commit to something, it's to win.”
The 11-time world champion was ruled out of next month's worlds in Baku, however, due to a lingering right shoulder injury.
“I am doing my maximum to come back from this injury. Of course you must be patient, that's part of being a top-level athlete,” Riner said at the Parc des Princes stadium after re-joining Paris Saint-Germain's judo club on a contract until 2028.
Although he feels his shoulder is “creaking a bit at the moment" he is confident he will recover properly. Riner says he is not a “very patient” person but is trying to become one.
“We have a new (recovery) protocol in place, I hope this one works. If it doesn’t work there’s still a third protocol left. For the time being it's on the right track," he said. “As I said, I'm positive, because I had an operation on this shoulder in 2013 and up until now it has held firm; up until now it enabled me to win the best medals and what we experienced at Paris 2024.”
After taking bronze at the Tokyo Games, Riner reclaimed the Olympic title in Paris in 2024 to become the second three-time individual gold medalist in judo history.
Riner won another bronze at the 2008 Games in Beijing — his first — and also counts five European titles in individual competition. He amassed a staggering 154 straight victories from 2010-20 before losing to Japan’s Kokoro Kageura.
“I still have the desire to do great things in this sport,” he said. “I'm super happy to get out of bed in the morning and improve my judo.”
He still has to qualify for the next Olympics, though.
“I think there will be a maximum of five or six tournaments to get in the top 10 (places),” he said.
Riner previously competed for PSG's judo club from 1994-2007 and came back again in 2017. He then helped PSG win the 2024 edition of the Judo Champions League, following his Olympic success, and plans to help it win another in 2027.
“I’m delighted and honoured to write another chapter in my adventure here,” Riner said.
Djamel Bouras, president of PSG Judo, said Riner's role goes beyond his huge achievements on the tatami mat.
See AP’s full sports coverage here
FILE - Golden medalist France's Teddy Riner poses on the podium of the judo men's +100 kg event in the team judo competition, at Champ-de-Mars Arena, during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A TV news helicopter used by NBC and Telemundo crashed in Los Angeles and burst into flames, killing three people while covering the fatal collision of an SUV and a city bus.
NBC4 Los Angeles reported that two people aboard the helicopter — reporter Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw — were killed when the chopper went down Tuesday in the Chatsworth neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley north of downtown. Another person was killed on the ground, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
The crash happened as news crews were reporting on a collision involving an SUV that slammed into a city bus, killing at least two people and injuring six others.
There were no immediate details on what caused the helicopter crash, but an alarm could be heard sounding inside the helicopter's cockpit as it lost altitude in the final seconds of video the crew broadcast before the crash.
Just after the beeping noise starts, a woman’s voice says “uh oh.” The helicopter moves quickly away from the bus crash site and starts losing altitude. The woman says “You can’t pull up?” before the video stops as the chopper nears the ground.
The helicopter, a Eurocopter AS350, went down near a large storage facility. At least four cars and two storage containers burned after the helicopter caught fire. NBC4 reporter Robert Kovacik was at the bus scene and saw black smoke and rushed to the helicopter crash site.
The station identified the helicopter crash victims as Moreno, a familiar voice for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 during the station’s aerial coverage, and Marciniw. Both were employees of Angel City Air, which operated the chopper for the station.
Moreno, born in Orange County, joined Angel City Air in 2010, the same year she earned a broadcast journalism and political science degree from Chapman University. She reported for several news outlets and began flying with Marciniw in 2023, the NBC4 website said.
Marciniw grew up in Southern California and graduated from Burbank High School in 1974.
“I think a lot of us are still trying to process what happened, this terrible loss,” NBC4 reporter Lauren Coronado told viewers early Wednesday as she stood near the crash site. A hazmat crew was cleaning up jet fuel, she said.
In a tribute to Moreno and Marciniw, the newscast referred to them as “the team in the sky,” saying Moreno would often post videos from her job and was in awe of the view. Anchor Lynette Romero held a colleague’s hand and wiped away tears after hearing Moreno’s voice when one of her posts was played.
In an interview with the station, Esteban Jimenez, a pilot, said he had known Marciniw since the 1990s. He said Marciniw had been his instructor.
“I just talked to him on Sunday. We were talking about the aviation business and retiring,” he said.
Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said the alarm sounding in the helicopter’s final video sounds like the low rotor RPM warning horn that signals the main rotor is no longer spinning enough to keep the helicopter in the air.
“It just has all the earmarks of a potential loss of engine power and a dangerous decrease in the main rotor speed,” said Guzzetti who used to investigate crashes for both the NTSB and FAA.
Guzzetti said the pilot appeared to be trying to perform an emergency maneuver to use the wind to force the rotor to spin again much like a breeze turns a windmill. Doing that can create a bit of lift that could help cushion the impact, but Guzzetti said there would have been little opportunity to do that because the helicopter had been hovering at a low altitude beforehand.
There are risks to news helicopters particularly in a major city like Los Angeles where multiple helicopters respond to an incident, but the pilots all coordinate closely over the radio to ensure they maintain a safe distance from each other. The industry also shares best practices to help keep these news flights safe.
“It’s a very unique form of flying. And the community is very good about lessons learned," Guzzetti said. “And so because of that, you don’t hear about too many of those accidents. So they’re rare, but they do occur, just because the mission is a risky one.”
NBC4 and Telemundo 52 Los Angeles said in a statement they “are deeply saddened” and extended “heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of those who lost their lives.”
“Losing five Angelenos is very painful,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said. “And I know this community of Chatsworth, hit hard, will be grieving for some time.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom thanked the emergency crews responding to both crashes and said in a post on X that “our hearts are with the victims and families.”
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration said personnel will arrive Wednesday to begin an investigation into the cause of the helicopter crash.
The station said this is the second aviation tragedy in its history.
In 1977, a KNBC news helicopter crashed when it ran out of fuel while returning to the station after covering a wildfire in Santa Barbara, killing the pilot and camera operator. The pilot, former U.S. Air Force officer Francis Gary Powers, had been in the news years earlier when he was shot down and captured while flying a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union for the CIA, an ordeal portrayed in the movie “Bridge of Spies.”
There have been at least eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters in the U.S. since 2000, killing 16 people, according to a review of federal accident records and news accounts. They include a 2023 crash in a New Jersey forest that killed the pilot and a photographer aboard a helicopter used by Philadelphia station WPVI and a 2022 crash beside a Charlotte, North Carolina, interstate that killed a pilot and meteorologist during a training flight for WBTV.
This story has been updated to correct that Marciniw, not Moreno, graduated from Burbank High School and to correct the spelling of Jeff Guzzetti's last name.
Golden reported from Seattle. AP Transportation Writer Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.
In this aerial view, people investigate the aftermath of a news helicopter crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026.(AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
A police officer works the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
An aerial view of the aftermath of a news helicopter that crashed in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
An aerial view of the aftermath of a news helicopter that crashed in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
An aerial view of the aftermath of a news helicopter that crashed in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attends a news conference at the scene of a helicopter crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
First responders work the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass joined by other officials walk to a news conference near the scene of a helicopter crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Two people hug each other behind police lines at the scene of a helicopter crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass talks during a news conference at the scene after a helicopter crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows first responders work the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows First responders work the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows firefighters respond to a deadly bus crash, in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows a helicopter that crashed near a deadly bus crash, in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
First responders work the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
