The 21-year-old fencer Eszter Muhari fought with great focus and attention.Continue reading
Defending champion Kristóf Milák won the silver medal in the 200m butterfly at the Paris Olympics. Furthermore, in a high quality and memorable match, the Hungarian men’s sabre team also finished second on Wednesday.
The 24-year-old world record holder swimmer missed almost a year of training, and after his return there were many rumors about his performance, but on Tuesday he proved in the preliminaries and semi-finals that there was no serious problem with his form, coming out on top in both events.
In Wednesday’s final, the fans were in for a special duel between home crowd favorites Léon Marchand and Kristóf Milák, with the Paris La Défense Arena almost full.
Kristóf Milák. Photo: MTI/Kovács Tamás
Milák got off to a good start, coming up first out of the water in 24.32 seconds, half a second better than his semi-final split time. However, after the first half of the race, the French 400m medley champion made a huge comeback and overtook the Hungarian in the last meters. Marchand triumphed with a lifetime best of an Olympic record (1:51.21), four hundredths better than Milák’s time in Tokyo, who now finished in 1:51.75.
This is Milák’s third medal at the Olympics, having also finished second in the 100m butterfly in the Japanese capital three years ago.
Results:
Gold medalist Léon Marchand of France (C), silver medalist Kristóf Milák (L) and bronze medalist Ilya Kharun of Canada (R). Photo: MTI/Kovács Tamás
In addition to Milák’s success, the Hungarian fans could also cheer for the men’s sabre team on Wednesday. The Hungarians had earlier defeated the Italians 45-38 and the Iranians 45-43. In the final, they faced the defending and 2012 Olympic champions South Korea.
Áron Szilágyi fought the first fencing bout against Park Sangwon and lost 5-4 in a close battle, as did Krisztián Rabb against Oh Sang-uk. Up next was András Szatmári with Gu Bon-gil and the match was still close.
Photo: MTI/Illyés Tibor
Moments later, Szatmári lost 5-3 to Gu Bon-gil, leaving the overall score at 11-15. Rabb was superb, closing the gap with a 6-5 win over Park Sangwon. Szilágyi then clashed with Do Gyeong-dong and the final score of 5-5 was set up. After that, Szatmári won 7-5 to make the overall score 29-30 after the second round.
In the third round the gap grew significantly. Against Park Sangwon, Szatmári tried to come back from 29-35, but it was unsuccessful and the score difference grew.
In a great final game, Szilágyi tried his best, but his opponent, Oh Sang-uk, also a world-class fencer, did not falter and at 41-44 he scored the winning touch.
The Hungarian team has been defeated by the South Koreans in three World Championships finals in recent years, but managed to beat them in the fourth one last year in Milan. Now the Asians have fought back.
Csanád Gémesi, András Szatmári, Krisztián Rabb and Áron Szilágyi (L-R). Photo: MTI/Illyés Tibor
Results:
The men’s sabre team won the third medal of the Hungarians in Paris.
Via MTI; Featured image via MTI/Kovács Tamás