Reigning Olympic champion Shohei Ono won his third title in the men's 73-kilogram division at the judo world championships on Tuesday, while fellow Japanese Tsukasa Yoshida settled for silver in the women's 57-kg class.
Ono defeated Azerbaijan's Rustam Orujov in the final with an uchimata inner-thigh sweep for ippon, less than two minutes into the bout at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan, the venue for judo at next summer's Olympics.
"I'm not surprised because I thought I'd win," Ono said. "I'm relieved rather than having a sense of accomplishment or satisfaction. Defending the Olympic title isn't as easy as people say, so I want to start over from scratch."
Japan has claimed three gold medals from six divisions for men and women combined after three days of action.
The 27-year-old Ono, competing at his first world championships since 2015, won all six of his matches by ippon. He beat Russia's Denis Iartcev in the semifinals.
Ono returned to competition last year, since taking time off after winning at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Iartcev and Azerbaijan's Hidayat Heydarov earned bronze.
In the women's 57-kg final, Yoshida lost to her Japan-born long-time rival Christa Deguchi of Canada in extra time.
Yoshida started aggressive and attempted many techniques, but Deguchi resisted and scored a waza-ari for her maiden world championship.
The 23-year-old Deguchi was born and raised in Japan but decided to represent her father's home country to increase her chances of competing at the Summer Olympics. She earned bronze in her world championship debut last year.
"I knew I would have to face Deguchi in the final. I wanted to pick up the momentum, but I wasn't good enough," Yoshida said.
"I want to compete against her in the finals of the Tokyo Olympics. It will be my turn to win," she said.
Rio Olympic gold medalist Silva Rafaela of Brazil claimed bronze after losing to Yoshida in the semifinals. Poland's Julia Kowalczyk also finished third.
Joshiro Maruyama and Uta Abe won the men's 66 kg and women's 52 kg, respectively, on Monday, the second day of the week-long tournament.
This year's world championships double as a test event for next summer's Tokyo Olympics. Some 800 judoka from 147 countries are competing in seven weight categories for each gender in addition to the mixed team event.
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