World champion Hifumi Abe in a league of his own

World champion Abe Hifumi has now won 28 consecutive contests after winning four of his five contests by ippon today. Abe, who had already seen his younger sister Abe Uta win U52kg gold, fulfilled his part by defeating a game Joshiro Maruyama (JPN) who was appearing in his first Grand Slam final.

Former Almaty Grand Prix winner Maruyama, 24, of Tenri University, worked hard to force the contest in golden score but Abe always keeps something in reserve and threw his compatriot after 52 seconds of additional time with an o-uchi-gari to win his fifth Grand Slam gold medal at only 20 years of age. The Abe siblings would actually be second in the medal table on their own after their day one exploits. Both youngsters appear destined for a major impact on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and are two of the new faces of the IJF World Judo Tour in this Olympic cycle.

In the first semi-final Düsseldorf Grand Prix silver medallist Isoda Norihito (JPN) gave world champion Abe a difficult contest but the latter eventually prevailed by ippon after two minutes of golden score.

In the second semi-final Rio 2016 Olympic silver medallist An Baul (KOR) narrowly lost out to Maruyama in golden score by a waza-ari.

In the first bronze medal contest An was on top form as he convincingly brushed aside Antalya Grand Prix bronze medallist Baruch Shmailov (ISR). AN led with a waza-ari from a ippon seoi-nage and then countered a weak osoto-gari for ippon.                           

The second bronze medal went to Isoda who surged past Vazha Margvelashvili (GEO) after just 13 seconds with a foot sweep.

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