Lefort and Kharlan secure individual golds at World Fencing Championships

Lefort took the men’s individual foil gold with victory over Great Britain’s Marcus Mepstead to earn Frande a first gold medal in the foil for nearly 30 years, whilst Kharlan won her fourth world championship in the women’s individual sabre event thanks to an exciting and narrow win over Russia’s Sofya Velikaya.

The third evening of finals competition at YMA Sports and Conference Centre in the Hungarian capital brought a conclusion to the foil and sabre events which saw 334 men and women competing respectively.

Lefort, an Olympic team silver medallist at Rio 2016, made easy work of beating Mepstead, winning a one-sided final thanks to a 15-6 scoreline. The world number 10 was a member of the French squad which sealed team gold in 2014 but had never won the solo title until now. The victory also give France its 11th individual men’s foil world title and its first gold medal since Philippe Omnes’ victory back in 1990.

In the semi-finals, Mepstead overcame the stiff test provided by Korea’s Son Young-ki, winning 15-12, whilst Lefort beat 2017 world champion Dmitry Zherebchenko of Russia in clinical fashion, 15-7. Zherebchenko had reached the last four with a stunning performance in the quarter-finals where he eliminated Italian world champion Andrea Cassara, handing out a 15-6 defeat.

In the women’s individual sabre event, Kharlan underlined her dominance of her discipline with a hard-fought 15-14 win over Russian rival and Olympic silver medallist Sofya Velikaya.

The triumph for the four-time Olympic medallist saw her add to the world titles she claimed in 2013, 2014, 2017. It also ensured she enjoyed a happy return to Budapest where she won her first individual World Championships gold six years ago.

Kharlan reached the final by thrashing Romania’s Bianca Pascu 15-5, while Velikaya, the 2015 world champion and last year’s silver medallist, prevailed over Greece’s Theodora Gkountoura 15-11.

With the individual competitions and medals now all decided, the action continues on Sunday with the first two team events and gold medals to be fought for in the men’s sabre and women’s epee.