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Hungarians performed well over the weekend at the Fencing World Cup. Five medals were collected at the World Cup venues: one gold, two silver, and two bronze.
The shower of medals started with the gold medal of sabre fencer Áron Szilágyi on Saturday, who took the top step of the podium at the men’s World Cup in Tbilisi, Georgia.
The three-time Olympic champion, World Championship, and European Championship winner won his tenth World Cup gold medal.
He reached the last four by beating Italy’s Mattia Rea 15-11, Turkey’s Tolga Aslan 15-7, Tunisia’s Fares Ferjani 15-10, and Filip Dolegiewicz of the USA 15-8, after which he beat Italy’s Luigi Samele 15-6 and then Iran’s Ali Pakdaman 15-7 in the final. “(…) I started the day a bit rusty, the young Italian made me sweat. Then, as we went forward, I got a better and better feel for fencing. In the final four I controlled the matches all the way through and of course I am very happy with the gold. At the same time, I felt deep down that I still had a lot of work to do in both defense and attack before the Olympics,” Szilágyi said.
Also on Saturday, Eszter Muhari won the bronze medal in the women’s épée at the World Cup in Barcelona.
The Hungarian épée fencer beat Noemi Moeschlin of Switzerland 15-12, and then world-ranked No. 2 and defending world champion Marie-Florence Candassamy of France. She then outlasted Italy’s Giulia Rizzi 12-11, while she confidently defeated Ukraine’s Olena Krivicka 15-6. In the semi-finals, she played South Korea’s Song Se Ra and lost 15-7.
Sugár Battai won the silver medal in women’s sabre at the World Cup in Lima, Peru.
Liza Pusztai, who is also a two-time world champion with the Hungarian team, finished eighth.
Battai beat Lucia Martin-Portugues of Spain and Tatiana Nazlymov of the U.S. 15-11, and Jun Ji Su of South Korea 15-14, before winning by the same margin against last year’s World Championships runner-up Despina Georgiadu of Greece. She also got past Uzbekistan’s Zaynab Dajibekova 15-12 in the semi-finals, and in the final she fought four-time World Championship winner Olga Harlan, who stopped Liza Pusztai in the last eight. Battai was also unable to overcome the Ukrainian, losing 15-6 to finish second.
On Sunday, the Hungarian sabre fencing team won a silver medal at the men’s World Cup in Tbilisi, and with two events to go they continue to lead the Olympic qualification rankings.
The defending world champions Áron Szilágyi, András Szatmári, Csanád Gémesi, and Tamás Decsi beat the Turks 45-38 in the round of 16, Egypt 45-33 in the round of eight and the USA 45-31 in the semi-finals. In the final, Hungary faced South Korea, whom they beat 45-42 in last year’s World Cup final in Milan. This time, the South Koreans, World Cup gold medalists in the previous four years, won by a single score, 45-44, in a match that featured several twists and turns. “It was a great weekend, even if it is hard for me to recover from what happened in the final. Let’s just say that in my eyes this team won the tournament (…),” the website of the Hungarian Fencing Federation quoted head coach András Decsi as saying.
On the same day, the Hungarian team won the bronze medal in women’s sabre fencing at the World Cup in Lima, and further strengthened their Olympic qualification position.
The team consisting of Sugár Battai, Liza Pusztai, Luca Szűcs, and Renáta Katona beat Algeria 45-25 in the round of 16 and then defeated the Americans 45-40 in the quarter-finals. In the semi-finals, the Hungarians met the French, whom they had beaten in the finals of the previous two World Championships, but this time they lost 45-35. In the bronze medal match, the team beat the Bulgarians 45-42. According to the Hungarian federation, “with two stages to go before the end of Olympic qualification, it is looking more and more that our place in Paris is secure (…).”
Via MTI, hunfencing.hu; Featured image: Pixabay