new order Hifumi Abe can dominate for a decade

20-Year old Abe Hifumi is one of the sensations of this year. Abe became World Champion in Budapest and was definitely among the favourites in advance. Abe excelled this year with judo in style, an attractive judoka scoring the best ippons with classic throws.

Hifumi Abe is unbeatable since 2016 when he won the Japanese title. Since then he won all international events.

Grand Slams in Tyumen, Tokyo, Paris followed by the World title in August and to close the year in style another Grand Slam title, his third that he won when he was 17, comparable to his sister, another prodigy of Japanese judo. She became the youngest ever World Tour gold medallist this year in Düsseldorf.

Hifumi was on the map when he won the international Masters in Bremen for cadets. That’s usually a good sign of talent. He was 14 by then.  Not much later followed by the Asian cadet title, the cadet world title and in 2014 Hifumi won the Youth Olympic Games. At his 17^th he was Japanese junior champion and we know the competition is severe. Perhaps fortunately he lost the Junior world title final, but Abe skipped the juniors, and won the Grand Slam of Tokyo on top of that crazy year.

In 2017 he added another crazy year, like a machine and his judo as fabulous. In this competitive weight category An Baul, Olympic Champion Fabio Basile are the names. In the beginning of the year Davaadorj, Pulyaev were in the top 5. But Flicker and Shikhalizada came up with Abe. The youngster moved up as runner-up behind An. After the Worlds, a new order was set and Abe only built out his position as one of the youngest ever male leaders in the World Ranking. Takato, Shavdatuashvili, Riner and Wang were for instance younger.

Still Hifumi can dominate judo for a decade, but knowing the Japanese competition is huge, some day there will be a new prodigy. For now they are the new order.

Watch the judo stats of Hifumi Abe