Nami Nabekura exchanges last year's silver to gold

Another Japanese World Champion in the category U63kg. After Miho Minei last year who beat Japanese Nabekura Nami in Fort Lauderdale, now it was Nabekura to shine in Abu Dhabi. The Japanese efforts and talent paid out and Nabekura defeated her European opponents. She took the fifth World title for Japan this edition.

East Asian Championships winner and Junior world silver medallist Nabekura Nami of Japan had the measure of former Russian Junior European Championships bronze medallist Diana Dzhigaros in the -63kg final. Nabekura erased the memory of her 2014 final defeat by winning Japan’s fifth junior world title in the United Arab Emirates after going ahead with a waza-ari from an uchi-mata and added a second waza-ari from osaekomi-waza.       

In the first semi-final Dzhigaros defeated top seed and European Champion Lucy Renshall. The Russian fighter held down the British fighter with a tate-shiho-gatame on the edge of the area for 20 seconds and ippon. In the second semi-final Belgrade European Cup winner Lara Reimann of Germany was well beaten by Nabekura who won by wazari-awasette-ippon after two minutes.

The first bronze medal was won by Reimann who held down 18-year-old former British Cadet World Championships bronze medallist Lubjana Piovesana with a yoko-shiho-gatame for 20 seconds to earn the maximum score. The second bronze medal was captured by Renshall who came from behind to beat Junior European silver medallist Elisavet Teltsidou. Greek judoka Teltsidou led with a yuko but Renshall never stopped working and scored a waza-ari from a determined ouchi-gari to win her country’s first medal in Abu Dhabi.