Douillet won two consecutive gold medals at the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and Sydney competing in the heavyweight division.

[4] Quickly becoming attracted to the Japanese martial art, he distinguished himself on the tatamis, and thanks to his good academic results, integrated the study of the sport at the school Victor et Hélène Basch,[5] near the University of Rennes.

He was already heads above the others, and after what was seen on the mat, I immediately reserved a place for him; at INSEP, the center of the elite of the French athletics.Consequently, the young David could devote himself to his passion, while continuing his education in the Paris region, Maisons-Alfort, and involving himself at the INSEP facility of Bois de Vincennes, the coterie of elite and promising French judokas.

[7][8] Thanks to this first national title, David qualified for his first senior European championships in Prague, where he finished in third place, a real achievement for a 22-year-old at his first selection.

However, a movement of the legs by Ogawa, in the next fight, put Douillet ippon, and the French judoka out for the gold medal race.

[11] A good performance being a great step towards an Olympic medal, Douillet was planning to defend his world title gained two years earlier in Canada.

Having beaten the Japanese quadruple world champion Naoya Ogawa, then the Spaniard Ernesto Pérez in the semi-final, he finally triumphed over the German Frank Möller by ippon, after less than 2 minutes of fighting, and retained his title.

Furthermore, with his double win, Douillet entered the history books of judo, becoming the third judoka to carry out this exploit after Yasuhiro Yamashita in 1981 and Naoya Ogawa in 1989.

Douillet passed the first matches without difficulties by eliminating the Belgian Van Barneveld, the Luxembourger Müller, and the Austrian Krieger.

The long convalescence, and eight months of rehabilitation, actually reinvigorated the Frenchman and gave him new motivation after his gold medal: This accident rekindled my desire.

[18] Thus, he returned gradually to his ideal shape (approximately 125 kg) and joined again the competition, at the time of the Mediterranean Games, which took place in June 1997 in Bari, Italy.

[19] This victory, giving him a third world crown (fourth with the Open title in 1995), tied Douillet with another Japanese athlete, Yasuhiro Yamashita, and closed a difficult post-Atlanta period marked not only by his motorbike accident, but also by financial problems related to bad investments.

[20] However, a pain in the shoulder forced him to withdraw once again from the tatamis after the world championship in Paris, and in August 1998, he was the victim of a distortion of the wrist, and withdrew from competition for several months.

While this was not the ideal way to prepare for his return, one and half months before the Olympic event he participated in a competition in Bonn,[23] where he was beaten in the semi-final by the German Frank Möller and took third place.

This was a minor but essential competition in his road back to high-level,[24] a comeback considered encouraging by his trainer Marc Alexandre, who did not entirely hide his concerns, however, due to the delay in his preparation caused by David's repetitive injuries.

In spite of the doubts concerning his physical condition, Douillet was present in Sydney, Australia, for the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympics.

[27] After winning his first match on a no-show from the Venezuelan Douglas Cardozo (he was not present at the weighing before the competition[28]), the Frenchman faced the Turk Selim Tataroğlu, recent vice-champion of Europe (Open), and multiple medal-holder in the World Judo Championships.

The Frenchman, however, beat him by ippon thanks to an o-uchi-gari (great interior mowing), and qualified for the quarter-finals where he faced the Belgian Harry van Barneveld, bronze medal winner four years before in Atlanta.

The Olympic tournament in Sydney, however, marked the end of the road for the French judoka, who immediately announced his retirement after the competition, he won 88 matches and lost 21.

[34] The French judoka is no longer the record Olympic title-holder, since the Japanese Tadahiro Nomura won his third consecutive title in 2004 in Athens.

This recognition is all the more remarkable because it came ahead of both Brahim Asloum, the first French Olympic champion of boxing since 1936, and the leader of the France national football team Zinedine Zidane, who just won the European championship.

Sometimes invited onto television programs, the judoka has his puppet with Les Guignols de l'info, a popular satirical broadcast on Canal+.

After a short passage through the television production companies,[41] Douillet now lends his name to several brands (sporting material, working goods, camp-site or excursion equipment), as well as kimono under the signature DD (mark),[42] and even recently[when?]

[43] David Douillet was a candidate for the UMP center-right political party in the by-election of 11 and 18 October 2009 in the 12th constituency of the Yvelines department.