Aron Szilagyi, Sun Yiwen make history with wins in gold-medal fencing matches
Fencing fans who followed the entirety of the women’s individual epee event and the men's individual sabre competition got to witness quite a bit of Olympic history being written.
In the men’s finals, Hungarian fencer Aron Szilagyi became the second man to win the same individual fencing event three times, adding a third gold to his collection of medals from Rio and London by besting Luigi Samele (ITA) 15-7. Valentina Vezzali (ITA) accomplished the three-peat in the individual foil competition during the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Games.
Samele’s silver is his first Olympic medal while bronze medalist Kim Jung-Hwan (KOR) now has a total of three including an individual bronze won in Rio and a team gold from the London Games.
SEE MORE: Fencing 101: Glossary
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During the women’s competition, Sun Yiwen defeated Ana Maria Popescu (ROU) 11-10 in a sudden-death overtime to claim her first Olympic gold, a medal that brings her career total to three and places her in a tie with Sun Yujie (no relation) for the title of most decorated Chinese Olympic fencer.
SEE MORE: China's Yiwen Sun wins fencing gold in dramatic fashion
In Rio, Yiwen collected a silver for the team women’s epee event and a bronze in the individual competition. She’ll have a chance at a fourth medal during the women’s team epee competition Tuesday which China is favored to win.
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Popescu’s silver marks the third Olympic medal of her career. She won her first by finishing second in the individual epee event in Beijing and later added a team gold in Rio. The 36-year-old is the oldest silver medalist in women’s epee, breaking a record set by Laura Flessel-Colovic when the French fencer was 32 years and 283 days old while competing in the Athens Games.
In the bronze-medal match, Katrina Lehis downed Aizanat Murtazaeva, the Russian fencer who eliminated American Kelley Hurley in the round of 16, 15-8 to claim Estonia’s first Olympic fencing medal ever. Lehis’ bronze was also Estonia's first medal of the Tokyo Games.
