Uta Abe threw her first opponent Larissa Pimenta (BRA) with ouchi-gari for waza-ari and then with uchimata for yuko. There was no ippon but still a good win.
Next, she threw Tereza Bodnarova (CZE) with sode-tsurikomi-goshi for waza-ari in the opening seconds. It looked like it could be a short match but Bodnarova lasted through the whole match.
Abe had a real scare against Mascha Ballhaus (GER) who launched her with a massive Khabarelli technique that scored waza-ari. With time running out, Abe pressured Ballhaus and the German got her second penalty with just about a minute to go. With just four second left, Ballhaus cracked and strayed outside the contest area, resulting in her third penalty. Abe was through to the semifinal.
There, she countered Ayumi Leiva Sanchez (ESP) with ouchi-gaeshi for waza-ari and then uchimata for ippon. This is vintage Abe and probably was her best performance of the day.
The final was a bit of a letdown in that there were no big throws involved, only penalties. In the end, Abe won when her opponent Ariane Toro Soler (ESP) got her third shido, for a fake attack, about three and a half minutes into Golden Score. It wasn’t a great final but it was a great result for Abe, who had previously won her first-ever World title in Baku back in 2018, together with her brother. (Hifumi Abe, also won the -66kg gold this time around.
