Épée, Team, Men

After Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, France won its third consecutive men’s team épée gold medal on the final day of fencing at the Rio Olympics. In London 2012, the event was not contested, falling victim to the rotational system that was implemented to reduce the number of fencing events at the Olympics to ten. This was the country’s ninth Olympic gold in this event, thus breaking the tie with Italy when they each had eight gold medals. In the final against Italy, France had to replace their individual épée bronze medalist, and number one ranked Gauthier Grumier, who had competed in all their matches up to the final. However, his replacement, Jean-Michel Lucenay, did his job by winning two bouts and tying one, scoring eight points. His team-mates Yannick Borel and Daniel Jerent scored 20 and 17 points respectively. In the final France never trailed Italy. With a 20-14 advantage, Borel was sent into the sixth period and extended the lead to 30-19. The final five points also came from Borel against Italy’s Marco Fichera for a convincing final score of 45-31. In the bronze medal bout, Hungary’s veteran, and Rio individual silver medalist, Géza Imre, led his team to a narrow 39-37 win over reigning world champions Ukraine.