The team already secured their Olympic participation two weeks ago in Athens.Continue reading
Excellent results were achieved over the weekend at the fencing World Cup competitions. On Saturday, András Szatmári won the gold medal in the men’s sabre World Cup in Budapest, while Dávid Nagy won the bronze medal in men’s epée World Cup in Tbilisi, Georgia. On Sunday, the Hungarian team took third place in women’s epée World Cup in China.
The Budapest tournament started on Friday with the qualification round in BOK Hall, with 26 Hungarian fencers competing in the 267-strong field, a record for the fencing competition. The three-time Olympic champion, winner of the same event last year and the year before, Áron Szilágyi, who was ranked second in the world ranking, was among the top competitors, as was Szatmári, the 2017 world champion and 2019 World silver medalist, who is ranked 14th in the world.
On Saturday, Szatmári fought outstandingly and marched confidently to the final, but his momentum was not broken here either, as he beat Italy’s Luca Curatoli, the 2019 World bronze medalist, 15-10. Szatmári’s best result at the Gerevich-Kovács-Kárpáti World Cup so far was third place in Győr in 2016.
“I finally did it! A lot of work and a whole day of concentrated fencing went into this victory,” he assessed after the tournament. Gábor Gárdos, Szatmári’s coach, noted:
We have been practicing for a long time, and I could see at this tournament that András managed to implement a lot of it. We are preparing for the Olympics…”
This was the last competition of the one-year Olympic qualification period. The Hungarians had previously qualified as a team, guaranteeing them three places in the individual event in Paris.
In the last event of the one-year Olympic qualification period, epée fencer Dávid Nagy took third place on the podium in Tbilisi on Saturday. There were three Hungarian competitors in the event: defending world champion Máté Koch was eliminated in the first match, while 2019 world champion and 2021 Olympic silver medalist Gergely Siklósi was eliminated in the second round.
The Hungarian team won the bronze medal in the women’s epée at the World Cup in Nanjing, China, on Sunday with a brilliant performance. The team consisting of Tamara Gnám, Eszter Muhari, Kinga Dékány, and Blanka Nagy started in the last 16 and defeated Estonia 45-41, which meant that the defending champions could not participate in the Paris Olympics, reports the Hungarian Fencing Federation’s website hunfencing.hu.
Photo: Facebook/Tatabányai Sport Club
The Hungarian team came in eighth in the final qualifying round for the Olympics. Eight teams per discipline are allowed to compete in the Paris Games, but the Egyptians earned the quota by winning the Africa Cup and finishing 16th at the World Championships, as well as competing in all the World Cups. “It is a great result, but it is a bit unfair that a team qualifies for the Olympics instead of us, which goes to all the World Cups, loses its first match and then goes sightseeing,” said head coach Péter Somfai to the federation’s website.
Of course, we also have ourselves to blame for not being there in Paris. But today was a great day. All four girls did their best.”
In terms of Olympic qualification, from a Hungarian point of view, there was no stake left for this World Cup, as the team did not make it to Paris, and in the individual category the maximum quota was reached, therefore the qualifier Anna Kun did not participate in the competition.
Via MTI, Featured image: MTI/Kovács Tamás