Uta Abe judo phenomenon at the age of 22

Uta Abe is the undisputed queen of the U52kg category. Her record going into the World Championships is unquestionable. She has won all but two of her contests in international competition stretching all the way back to 2016. She is the current Olympic champion and the current and three-time world champion. In Doha, though many of the world’s best tried to take it from her, retaining that world title was never in doubt.

Diyora Keldiyorova (UZB) was the last of the top seeds standing in Abe’s way. The Uzbek’s path to the final was somewhat simpler than Abe’s, but no less worked for. A tough fight against Lopez Sheriff (ESP) in round 2 finished with her throwing the Spaniard with a strong sode-tsurikomi-goshi early in golden score but in round 3 she was left without an opponent, after the round 2 contest between Kelly Deguchi (CAN) and Ben Liu (CHN) ended in a double hansoku-make; each player was awarded a third shido after 12 minutes of golden score. The contest featured very little in the way of strong throwing attempts and the message from the IJF Refereeing Commission is clear: do not come to the world championships if you are not prepared to give your all in the search for ippon.

Keldiyorova went on to defeat Primo of Israel comfortably in the quarter-final with tani-otoshi. Two rapid seoi-nage throws helped her overcome world number 3 Reka Pupp (HUN). Keldiyorova had thus reached the final that her recent form deserved and gave her the chance to take down the Olympic champion, but it was not to be.

Against the Uzbek, Abe used the same turnover and hold she used to defeat Buchard in the aforementioned Olympic final and added an incredible fourth world gold to her medal collection. She becomes only the third woman in judo history to earn four world titles and based on her performance today, it surely won’t be the last. Keldiyorova had to settle for silver, still a fantastic result for her and her home country.

The first bronze medal contest saw 3-time world bronze medallist Buchard face world number 3 Reka Pupp (HUN). Buchard’s kata-guruma served her well once again, as she threw Pupp for waza-ari with only 4 seconds left on the clock.

The second bronze medal was contested by Krasniqi and Rio Olympic silver medallist Giuffrida (ITA). It was a brutal match-up, that saw very few openings for either player but after 12 minutes of fighting, Giuffrida somehow conjured up a seoi-nage which caught Krasniqi completely off-guard and the Kosovan went over for waza-ari. Giuffrida couldn’t contain her emotion as she celebrated her first world championship medal and a hard-earned one at that.

The first victim of Uta Abe was Puljiz (CRO), who surprised Abe early on with a sumi-gaeshi attempt with less than 30 seconds gone and it almost scored. Abe responded quickly through, throwing with two waza-ari-scoring uchi-mata attacks in quick succession.

Next up was former world bronze medallist Kocher (SUI), whom Abe wasted no time in throwing with a whirling koshi-guruma, among the biggest ippons of the day.

A repeat of the 2021 Tokyo Olympic final was next, as Amandine Buchard (FRA) won through to the quarter-final to face her. Buchard was as dangerous as ever with her low kata-guruma attacks and almost took Abe into golden score but she flagged in the final minute and Abe launched a last-second off-the-grip o-soto-gari which settled the contest with only 4 seconds remaining. Recent history had repeated itself in Doha.

If an Olympic final replay wasn’t enough to delight the spectators, the semi-final went one step further, pitching two Olympic champions against each other. Distria Krasniqi took the -48kg crown in Toyko and since moving up a weight category has ascended swiftly to number 2 in the world rankings. However, not even a fellow Olympic champion could block Abe’s path to gold. The Japanese judoka dominated the Kosovan throughout the 3-minute contest and eventually threw with seoi-nage before freeing her entangled leg to pin her opponent for ippon.