PARIS: An era-defining winning streak in Olympic fencing was snapped in a shocking upset on Saturday as Hungarian fencer Aron Szilagyi lost his opening bout while chasing a fourth consecutive gold medal.
Oh Sanguk of South Korea went on to win the men’s saber gold with a 15-11 victory over Fares Ferjani of Tunisia in the final.
Italian Luigi Samele, the silver medalist in 2021, took the bronze.
Szilagyi won Olympic gold in men’s individual saber in 2012, 2016 and 2021 — the only male fencer to be a three-time individual champion. In Paris, he was trying to become the only fencer in Olympic history with four individual gold medals.
Instead, the streak ended in Szilagyi’s first bout of the Paris Games, where he was beaten 15-8 by the 27th-seeded Fares Arfa in the round of 32 for one of the biggest upsets so far at the 2024 Olympics. Arfa, a first-time Olympian, racked up six unanswered points to start the bout. Szilagyi closed the gap to 6-4 but couldn’t catch the Canadian.
“I’m in a bit of shock right now, so I’m not even disappointed or angry at myself yet. It happened so fast, and I’ve never thought that my individual competition here in Paris would be so short,” Szilagyi said.
“It’s really a shock. It’s like my opponent read me. I was an open book to him,” he added. “In every touch, what he wanted, it happened. All his parries worked, all his attacks landed.”
Szilagyi was on a run of 15 wins in individual saber competition at the Olympics and had not lost in that event since a defeat to Keeth Smart of the United States in the round of 16 at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Arfa lost his next bout to eventual champion Oh, who won team saber gold with South Korea three years ago and added the individual gold Saturday in a final packed with late drama.
A point that would have won Oh the gold was overturned on review. Ferjani then won five more points before Oh could close out the win. It denied Ferjani what would have been the first fencing gold for an African nation.
Vivian Kong Man Wai had to beat not only Auriane Mallo-Breton of France to win women’s epee fencing gold. The Hong Kong fencer had to beat the French crowd, too, and she did just that in a 13-12 overtime victory.
With Mallo-Breton up 5-1 at the end of the first period, it seemed she had turned Paris’ Grand Palais into a French fortress.
The cavernous glass-roofed exhibition hall built in 1900 echoed with cheers at every point for Mallo-Breton and gasps with every near-miss. The crowd certainly seemed to have played its part in the quarterfinals when Mallo-Breton turned a 10-7 deficit into a 15-10 win to stay in the tournament.
It was Kong who made the comeback in the final, though, leveling the score to force overtime and then taking the third-ever Olympic gold for Hong Kong in any sport. Eszter Muhari of Hungary won the bronze 15-14 against Nelli Differt of Estonia.
