Hifumi Abe exposes his talent defeating World Champ Ebinuma

Although he is in a great shape given his Junior world title and Kodokan Cup victory, nobody expected Hifumi Abe to beat World Champion Masashi Ebinuma. A motivating start and golden continuation of the Grand Slam in Tokyo for the teenager who defeated Israelian Golan Pollack in the final U66kg.

For the last final of the male’s category, Golan POLLACK (ISR), aged 23 and fifth one week ago in Jeju, and ABE Hifumi (JPN) were not the expected athletes when the competition started this morning Pollack being only ranked 21 at the World Ranking List, and ABE being the silver medallist of the last Junior World Championships in Florida, several weeks ago. ABE took the advantage with an o-soto-gari technique for yuko. Just a few seconds later, with an ample o-uchi-gari which started inside the fighting area and ended against the advertising boards, he almost doubled his advantage before being penalized a little later for passivity. With a strong tai-otoshi, the Japanese again was very close to increasing his lead, but POLLACK landed on his stomach for no-score. Nevertheless, ABE could maintain POLLACK at safe distance to win his first major senior title.

In the first bronze medal fight of the category, the young AN Baul (KOR), still junior, faced a more experienced competitor with PULYAEV Mikhail (RUS), silver in Chelyabinsk this summer on the occasion of the World Championships. Having scored a waza-ari with Mikhail PULYAEV had many difficulties to stay ahead on the scoreboard as AN was pushing and making him penalized. But finally the Russian could relax and enjoy his bronze medal after a long a hard competition day.

One of the main surprises of the day, after the elimination of GANBAT in the -60kg, and of Sarah Menezes in the women’s -48kg, was the defeat of the three-time world champion EBINUMA Masashi (JPN), who lost against his teammate, ABE Hifumi (JPN), in the semi-final. For the bronze medal fight, EBINUMA was again opposed to another teammate, TAKAICHI Kengo and it was said that this was not his day, as once again, after a terrific fight, where neither of the two athletes were able to throw their opponent, EBINUMA was trapped by an immobilization for ippon.