Hifumi and Uta Abe enjoyed a magical night inside the Nippon Budokan as the Japanese siblings both struck judo gold for Japan at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics here.
It was a fairytale occasion for the Abe family as the brother and sister were crowned Olympic champions for the first time on the same day.
Uta, the younger of the two siblings, secured the first of those golds when she emerged victorious in the women’s under-52-kilogram category, before Hifumi triumphed 30 minutes later in the men’s under-66kg division.
The pair’s two titles come after Naohisa Takato collected Japan’s first gold medal of the Olympics on the opening day of the judo.
Uta was tipped to succeed in the category and handled the pressure superbly, overcoming Amandine Buchard of France in a gruelling final that was decided in golden score.
Buchard took just 16 seconds to book her place in the final but was taken all the way by the fleet-footed Uta.
The 21-year-old Japanese star was penalised midway through the bout as Buchard held firm in normal time.
With the match in golden score, Abe upped the ante as she mounted further pressure on Buchard who did well to thwart the home favourite’s attacks.
Buchard battled hard but was undone when Abe pinned her opponent to the ground for the ippon with over four minutes gone in golden score.
With Uta watching on, 23-year-old Hifumi then delivered more family joy with an impressive performance to beat Vazha Margvelashvili of Georgia.
Looking to match his sister’s success, the two-time world champion came out firing against the Georgian.
Hifumi collected the first point of the bout when he forced Margvelashvili onto his side for a waza-ari inside the first 90 seconds.
The Japanese ace floored the Georgian on two more occasions as he looked to finish the match with an ippon.
Margvelashvili managed to see out the full three minutes, but Abe proved too strong on the day.
While Japan claimed the two golds on offer, the other medals went to six different nations.
The two women’s under-52kg bronzes went to Odette Giuffrida of Italy and Chelsie Giles of Britain.
Both of those matches were won with ippons, as Giuffrida overpowered Hungarian Réka Pupp and Giles outclassed Fabienne Kocher of Switzerland.
Daniel Cargnin of Brazil battled hard to beat Israel's Baruch Shmailov in a bruising bronze medal match in the men’s under-66kg category.
Cargnin had to receive treatment following a blow to his nose but his waza-ari inside the first minute proved to be the difference.
An Baul of South Korea secured the second Olympic medal of his career after sweeping aside world number one Manuel Lombardo of Italy.
With just over half the bout gone, An, the Rio 2016 silver medallist, flipped the European champion onto his back to secure victory.
Competition is due to continue tomorrow with the women's under-57kg and men's under-73kg categories.