Sabre, Individual, Men

36 sabre fencers from 18 countries qualified for the individual event at Tokyo. The reigning Olympic champion was Áron Szilágyi of Hungary and the reigning World Champion was Oh Sang-Uk of South Korea. Szilágyi dominated all his bouts except the semi-final, when he closely won 15-13 against Sandro Bazadze of Georgia. Bazadze finally finished unfortunate fourth losing the bronze match against South Korean Kim Jeong-Hwan. Szilágyi easily won the final against Italian Luigi Samele. Oh Sang-Uk was beaten by Bazadze 15-13 in the quarter-finals.

Szilágyi had won the two previous Olympics and became the first fencer to win the Olympic men’s sabre title three times. This brought back memories of Hungary’s glory days in sabre when a Hungarian was the champion in nine consecutive Olympics (1924-1964). Since then, however, Hungary won the title only once (in 1992) until Szilágyi won in 2012.