Hifumi Abe had plenty of hard matches on the way to the final. His first opponent, Kelvin Ray (FRA) took him to Golden Score. Uncharacteristically, Abe had to rely on penalties for the win.
He scored three times against Marko Jorgic (SRB), with osoto-gari twice and ouchi-gari, but couldn’t get that elusive ippon. Then, against Valerie Accogli (ITA) Abe again had to rely on penalties for the win.
Abe’s hardest match was undoubtedly the semifinal, where he faced his teammate and rival, Takeshi Takeoka. There was no score either way as they entered the final minute of regular time. But Abe had already accumulated two shidos while Takeoka had only one. With just about 30 seconds left, Takeoka came in for an osoto-gari which was countered for yuko. Abe then secured another yuko from ouchi-gari. Time ran out on Takeoka and Abe was through to the final.
Throughout the day, Abe was not able to throw for ippon but in his final match, against the unorthodox David Garcia Torne (ESP), he gave the crowd what they were looking for. Almost like magic, he crossed-grip the Spaniard and launched him with dynamic seoi-nage for ippon. Abe clearly saved the best for last.
