The -66 kg final at the Park24 Group Tokyo grand Slam was marked by caution. Despite Abe’s obvious superiority in terms of previous performances, both judoka know that either can find the right moment to win; it takes less than a second to apply the right technique at the right time and so every mistake is magnified.
Twenty-one year old Kentoku pushed Abe right to the wire, applying strangle attempts, high level escapes and outstanding gripping to cause him huge problems, but Abe is a champion for a reason. He has staying power like no other, the innate ability to push through all challenges and recover at a crazy speed. After three minutes of golden score, taking his fight day well over 30 minutes, Hifumi Abe took a grip around the back and combined forward and backward attacks in quick succession until an uki-goshi stuck and he threw Kentoku. This is a gritty, hard-earned gold for Abe and an outstanding silver medal for young Kentoku at his first grand slam.
For the first bronze medal Channyeong Kim (KOR) and Shinsei Hattori (JPN) stepped on to the tatami. Kim had come very close to eliminating Abe earlier in the day and looked determined to at least reach the podium after such a near miss. Kim did take the first score but in the very next second Hattori equalised with. Flying ko-soto-gake. This sent them into golden score where Hattori moved to the ground. He secured a 5 second hold to take the win and the medal.
Obid Dzhebov (TJK) and Takeshi Takeoka (JPN) faced off for the second bronze medal of the category. Opposing sides and opposing styles made for an interesting conundrum for both judoka, although Takeoka gave himself some breathing space by scoring early with a ko-soto-gake. From there, the action slowed a bit but as the last minute arrived, Takekoa did it again, another ko-soto-gake, this time for waza-ari. Dzhebov had no answer for it and so both bronze medals would be staying in Japan.
Final (-66 kg)
Bronze Medal Fights (-66 kg)
Final Results (-66 kg)
