On the first day of the Korean competition, all gold, silver and bronze medals were harvested.
Oh Sang-wook is celebrating after winning the gold medal in the men’s sabre individual final against Tunisia’s Fares Ferzani at the Paris Olympics fencing held at the Grand Palais in Paris, France on the 27th (local time).
It was a blessing and curse to lose the gold medal at the Olympics when you were ranked No. 1 in the world. Men’s sabre Oh Sang-wook sang the national anthem in France, the home of fencing. On
the 27th (local time), Oh Sang-wook defeated Fares Ferzani (Tunisia) 15-11 in the men’s sabre final held at the Grand Palais in Paris and won his first individual Olympic gold medal. Oh Sang-wook finished the first round 8-4 ahead with fast and accurate attacks that overwhelmed his opponent from the start, and in the second round, he only allowed one point and pushed Ferzani to 14-5. With only one point left to win the gold medal, he allowed four consecutive points to Ferzani. However, he did not crumble. Oh Sang-wook took off his mask and roared after accurately hitting the last point left to win the gold medal.
It is the first time that an Asian male athlete has won a gold medal in this event since Zhong Man (China) in 2008. Ferzani also attempted to become the first African athlete to win a gold medal in fencing, which is virtually dominated by Europe, but it was not enough to break Oh Sang-wook’s momentum.
With this win, Oh Sang-wook has achieved the ‘Grand Slam’ by winning all individual events at major international tournaments. This is also the first time for an Asian player.
Oh Sang-wook had already reached the top spot in the Fencing Federation (FIE) world rankings in the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 seasons. He was ranked number one in the world for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and was ranked ‘0th’ for the gold medal. However, he was eliminated in the quarterfinals that time and became the main character of an upset.
Oh Sang-wook won the individual event at the 2019 Asian Championships and World Championships, and the individual gold medal at the 2023 Asian Games. He came to Paris with only one Olympic gold medal left for the Grand Slam. In the end, thanks to the tears of Tokyo, Oh Sang-wook was able to reach the pinnacle of his career amidst the cheers of a sold-out crowd at the Grand Palais in Paris, the ‘holy land’ of fencing.
Oh Sang-wook’s individual gold medal was also a ‘revenge match’ for his Korean male sabre brothers. Samele Rugini (Italy), whom Oh Sang-wook defeated in the semifinals of this competition, was the same opponent who defeated Korea’s Kim Jung-hwan (bronze medalist) in the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics. Oh Sang-wook won a complete victory 15-4 against Rugini without allowing a single point in the second period. His final opponent was Ferzani, who defeated Korean male sabre legend Gu Bon-gil in the round of 32 of this competition. Rugini defeated the current world number one Ziad El-Sisi (Egypt) 15-12 in the bronze medal match, winning two consecutive medals following the Tokyo Olympics (silver medal). On the same day, in the women’s epee final, Hong Kong’s Vivienne Kong Man Wai overcame a 1-7 deficit to France’s Ariyan Malo Breton, who was cheered on by the home fans, to win 12-12 and win 13-12 in overtime. 안전놀이터