The day began with the departure of two London 2012 Olympic champions from the men's draw as the under 66kg champion Lasha Shavdatuashvili of Georgia, who has since moved up a weight division, and Russia’s Mansur Isaev both suffered shock defeats.

Defending champion Nakaya had no such problems, however, negotiating his way towards the final as he achieved an ippon in five consecutive fights to reach the gold medal tie for the third time in the last four editions.

In his absence from the final in 2013, Ono had secured his maiden world title and the 23-year-old was once again displaying impressive form as he swept to victory in a difficult Pool A.

His most notable success came by securing a waza-ari to defeat European champion Sagi Muki of Israel, who had begun the event as the number one seed, before overcoming South Korea’s Chang-Rim An in the semi-final.

As well as earning the gold, both Ono and Nakaya knew a victory could boost their hopes of being selected for Rio 2016, with only one judoka allowed from a nation per weight category, and the former seized an early chance, scoring with a waza-ari.

Nakaya proved unable to turn the bout into his favour and was  forced to relinquish his crown to his countryman, with both men now boasting two world titles in the division.

The result also means Japan have won the last six editions of the event.

Mongolia also had medal prospects in the division after Nyam-Ochir Sainjargal and Odbayar Ganbaatar made it through repecharge rounds but only Sainjargal was able to capitalise on his second chance, beating North Korea’s Kok Hyon Hong with a yuko for bronze.

Ganbaatar was to be denied by South Korea’s An, who bounced back from his semi-final loss to earn a narrow shido penalty win to secure his place on the podium.

While the men’s competition ended with the intrigue of the all-Japanese final, the women’s under 57kg division saw a number of rematches of major championship finals, with the most recent being the Pan American Games clash between Canada’s Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard and the United States’ Marti Malloy.

On that occasion in Toronto, Malloy beat the Canadian in front of her home crowd to win gold but Beauchemin-Pinard earned revenge here, achieving an ippon to advance to the semi-final.

That is where the challenge of the 21-year-old came to an end, suffering a defeat by waza-ari to the Olympic silver medallist Corina Caprioriu.

The result gave the Romanian the chance to avenge her defeat at London 2012 as her conqueror that day Matsumoto had earned a shido penalty win over France’s Automne Pavia in their semi-final.

The top seed,  though, was to be forced to settle for silver again at the hands of Matsumoto, as she  struck with a waza-ari before fending off attacks in the closing stages to secure her second world title.

France’s Pavia secured the first bronze medal with a shido penalty win over the American Malloy, while Mongolia’s second bronze medal of the day was secured by Sumiya Dorjsuren after Beauchemin-Pinard accrued a shido penalty during the decisive golden score period.

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