Will the dream of the ″strongest siblings″ continue to Los Angeles…Abe Uta: “The absolute queen secretly had back pain trouble and heavy pressure”

A chorus of “Uta” calls echoed through the venue. Cruelly, however, it was not to honor the winner.

Abe Uta, 24, a member of the women’s 52kg Judo team for the Paris Olympics and aiming for back-to-back championships, unexpectedly lost to Uzbekistan’s Diyora Keldiyorova, 26, by Ippon in the second round. Unable to accept the defeat, Abe sobbed loudly in public after finishing her bow.

Keldiyorova threw her right hand to the side of Abe’s body and held him up with her left hand behind his back. She then took him into the close combat that Abe had been preventing, and with the only timing available, she decided on the tani-yoshi. I can only say that Keldiyorova did a magnificent job,” said Takamasa Anai, Tenri University judo club coach and a representative of the men’s 100 kg division at the London Olympics.

Three years have passed since the Tokyo Olympics, where she and her older brother Kazumi (26) won gold medals on the same day. Being on the receiving end of the chase, the young queen was being pushed both mentally and physically.

Noriko Mizoguchi, who competed in the same 52kg class as Abe at the Barcelona Olympics and won the silver medal, dared to offer some bitter advice.

She was crying after the competition, which showed her lack of mental instability and lack of self-control. I think she needed to rethink her mental control over self-discipline.
His physical conditioning was also not perfect. In the fall of 2009, after the Tokyo Olympics, he underwent surgery on both shoulders, but he competed in the All-Japan Selected Weight Class Championships in October of the same year without taking time to recover. Last fall, she also suffered from back pain, and she was in a state of full wounds.

Except for the abstention, this was their first loss in about five years, since November 2007. The loss in the Olympics, where results are demanded more than in any other competitions, and especially in the big game in which the siblings’ consecutive championships were on the line, was too much of a shock.

However, Abe, before she became the absolute queen, was a judoka who used her defeats as a means to rise to the top. Keisuke Kakita, who coached her when she was a student at Shukugawa Gakuin Junior and Senior High School and is currently the judo coach at Sakuchosei Junior and Senior High School, tells the following story.

She was a hard worker,” said Keisuke Kakita, who coached her at Shukugawa Gakuin Junior and Senior High School. He has never been on an elite path. In her first year of high school, she was eliminated in the first round of the national high school tournament. But she accepted the defeat and became stronger. She was runner-up at the Grand Slam that year and won the same tournament the following year. Her defeat in Paris should help Abe Uta grow even more.

In an interview, her older brother, Kazumi, who won gold medals in two consecutive tournaments, encouraged her, saying, “She is not the kind of sister who will end up like this. A sportswriter who has been covering judo for many years confides, “She will retire after winning back-to-back championships in Paris.

He retired after winning back-to-back gold medals in Paris. There was talk that she might marry a man she was reportedly dating, but it didn’t happen. In response to her brother’s encouragement, she and her siblings should aim for the top spot at the Los Angeles Olympics in four years’ time. I think that is the best way for the Japanese judo world and for the judoka, Abe Uta.

The dream of the “strongest siblings” will bloom in the U.S. four years from now.

From “FRIDAY” August 16, 2024 issue