Sabre, Team, Men

After forty years unblemished years of success and 46 successive victories the unthinkable finally happened – Hungary lost at team sabre at the Olympic Games. In truth it wasn’t quite the shock it appeared to be as Hungary’s domination had been superseded by Poland and the USSR in recent years. The Hungarians were now regularly fighting for silver and bronze at the World Championships where 10 years earlier they had trounced all opposition. The end for Hungary came even earlier than expected and not at the hands of either the Poles or Soviets. Instead it was Italy who, 40 years after inflicting Hungary’s previous Olympic defeat, won a quarter-final on a 9-7 score line. Italy narrowly defeated France in the semis to set up a meeting with the USSR who had eliminated Poland in another closely fought match. Despite the best efforts of Wladimiro Calarese, who provided four victories to the Italian cause in the final, Italy fell 9-6 to the USSR. Poland and France tied on 8 wins apiece in the bronze medal match with Poland taking third place 60-59 on hits.