Sabre, Individual, Women

France’s Sara Balzer was the #1 seed and was world ranked #1 coming into Paris. She had competed at Tokyo 2020, but only in the team event, where she won a silver medal. Misaki Emura (JPN) was ranked #2 but had won the World Championship in 2022-23. Balzer’s teammate, Manon Apithy-Brunet, was the bronze medalist at Tokyo 2020 and had won the 2023 European Championship.

The two Frenchwomen continued to win, but Emura went out in round three, defeated by Korea’s Choi Se-Bin, who won easily, 15-7. The final came down to Balzer against Apithy-Brunet, with Apithy-Brunet taking an early lead, and holding on to win gold in a mild upset, 15-12. This was only the sixth Olympic appearance for women’s individual sabre, but it was the third consecutive time, and fourth overall, that one nation had both the gold and silver medalists.

The bronze medal match paired Choi against Ukrainian Olha Kharlan. Choi went ahead early, leading 8-3 after the first period, but Kharlan came back to take a narrow victory, 15-14, for the bronze medal. Kharlan would later lead her Ukrainian team to gold in the team sabre.