Former World Champion Dennis van der Geest happy about return of OpenWeight category

Five-time world medallist and 2004 Olympic bronze medallist Dennis van der Geest won the 2005 Openweight World Championships. Now a prominent television presenter in the Netherlands and a sought after DJ, the Dutchman is one member of the IJF's roster of announcers. "I was very happy to hear that the Openweight Worlds is coming back," said van der Geest.

"It is the heritage of our sport, a lighter, smaller, less strong judoka can still win. And if you think of the most popular people in all martial arts the big guys speak the most to your imagination."

The Netherlands' much-admired heavyweight recalled his own experience of the Openweight Worlds and what it took for him to come out on top.

"For me it was a dream come through after a few medals at the worlds before and losing the final two years before while I felt I was the best that day. It is always difficult to fight lighter opponents. They have less to loose and sometimes less power in kilograms but more stamina and tempo. Jang Sung-Ho (KOR) was my first fight and it was a difficult one. He was the U100 silver medallist that tournament and sometimes people forget that a guy who weighs 100 kilo is still a really big guy!"

Van der Geest looked ahead to this weekend and hopes that the male judoka will go forward and test Teddy Riner.

"I hope there will be a few judoka who are willing to fight Riner hard, and not settle with a loss. If you beat him you will be remembered because he is the greatest of all time in our sport."