After Takanori Nagase ended the country’s wait for the men’s 81kg world title yesterday, only the women’s under 78kg gold medal was missing from Japan’s collection and Umeki set about navigating her path to the final and potential history.

Her pursuit of gold was given an early boost with the departure of the pre-tournament favourite Kayla Harrison, who was beaten by South Korea’s Hyunji Yoon by a single waza-ari, while the defending champion Mayra Aguiar of Brazil fell to Daria Pogorzelec.

Polish judoka Pogorzelec would meet Umeki in the semi-final stage of the competition but would be unable to repeat her earlier good form as the Japanese star progressed to the gold medal bout having been awarded an ippon by the officials.

Umeki was able to repeat the trick in the final to end Japan’s wait for the title, but she made her expectant fans wait a little longer as the ippon came in a golden score period, after regulation time had ceased with her bout with Slovenia’s Anamari Velensek still scoreless.

The winners of the repecharge rounds made the most of their second chance in the competition as Germany's Luise Malazahn and The Netherlands' Marhinde Verkerk both went on to claim bronze medals, with Malazahn defeating France's Audrey Tcheumeo by ippon, while Verkerk beat Pogorzelec on shido penalties.

There was more trouble for the favourites in the women’s under 70kg division, with the top four judokas in the world rankings failing to make it out of the pool.

Among the causalities was the European champion Kim Polling, with the Dutch judoka being eliminated by Spain’s Maria Bernabeu in the Pool A decider by a waza-ari.

Similarly the defending champion Yuri Alvear of Colombia was to fall in the quarter-final phase as the veteran Frenchwoman Gevrise Emane was able to earn two yukos to defeat the three-time winner of the world title.

Emane was bidding to secure her second victory at the World Judo Championships in this weight division, having won back in 2007, and having progressed to the final with a win over Japan’s Chizuru Arai she faced the tournament surprise package Bernabeu.

The French judoka quickly made the most of her opponent’s inexperience in a major final as within the first 20 seconds she had been awarded an ippon after driving Bernabeu to the mat.

Emane’s compatriot Fanny Estelle Posvite secured the first of the two bronze medals to be awarded as she defeated the beaten semi-finalist Arai with an ippon, while Alvear recovered from her last-four defeat to beat Austria’s Bernadette Graf with a waza-ari.

The theme of the day continued in the men’s under 90kg division as the top seed Krisztian Toth of Hungary was unable to mount a challenge for gold as he and last year’s winner, Ilias Iliadis of Greece, were dumped out by Russia’s Kirill Denisov and Mongolia’s Otgonbaatar Lkhagvasuren respectively.

Denisov built on his performance by reaching the final for the second time in his career, but just like his first appearance he would be made to settle for silver as South Korea’s Dong Han Gwak defeated him with a waza-ari.

Georgia were guaranteed their first medal of the Championships when their judokas Varlam Liparteliani and Beka Gviniashvili met in the bronze medal match with the former winning by an ippon, while Japan’s Mashu Baker was given a walkover in the second bronze bout with Tajikistan’s Komronshokh Ustopiriyon withdrawing injured.

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