Sabre, Individual, Men

Aldo Montano was the 6th member of the Montano fencing dynasty to appear at the Olympic Games. His grandfather, also called Aldo, had competed at the 1936 and 1948 Games whilst his father and two uncles had been stalwarts of the Italian teams during the 70s. Whilst the family had produced individual medallists and team gold medal winners the one thing missing from the family’s CV was an Olympic gold medal in an individual event. Montano entered the Olympics as a bronze medallist from the 2013 World Championships but the favourites for the title were reigning world champion and #1 seed Volodymyr Lukashenko of Ukraine and Russian Stanislav Pozdnyakov, who had won the 2011 and 2012 World titles. All proceeded smoothly until the quarter finals where Lukashenko, Pozdnyakov and reigning champion Mihai Covaliu fell in quick succession. After an easy semi-final victory against Dmitry Lapkes of Belarus, Montano met with tougher opposition in the form of Hungary’s Zsolt Nemcsik in the final. Montano had to fight back from an early 5-1 deficit and a warning for arguing with the officials, to take victory in a bout which went to the last possible point. The Italian team marked his victory by hurling him into the air in celebration.
Ukraine’s Vladyslav Tretiak, a complete outsider, took bronze.