Half-Lightweight (≤66 kilograms), Men

This weight class was largely determined by the favourites from the ranking list. Top seed Hifumi Abe won gold, silver medallist Vazha Margvelashvili was ranked third and bronze medallist An Ba-Ul, already decorated with silver in Rio, finished fourth. Only the world champion runner-up, Italian Manuel Lombardo, succumbed to An in the bronze medal match. Abe was world champion in 2017 and 2018 and had an Olympic history of winning gold at the Youth Olympic Games in 2014. He defeated three of his four opponents by O-soto-gari (outer leg sweep). In the final he scored a Waza-ari (half point), applying this technique against the Georgian Margvelashvili 1:50 min into the fight, which was enough to succeed. Abe’s younger sister Uta took gold in the women’s -52 kg class half an hour earlier and he completed the family double. The passage of Margvelashvili was tougher than Abe’s. He had to defeat three top ten athletes to reach the final. The Brazilian Daniel Cargnin climbed from eighth seed to the podium and won bronze after losing to Abe by Ippon (full point) for a Seoi-nage (shoulder throw) after 2:25 of the semi-final.