Szilagyi and Kharlan secure gold medals at FIE Sabre Grand Prix in Seoul

Szilagyi overcame home favourite Junghwan Kim to win the men’s individual competition whilst Kharlan beat Hungary’s Anna Marton to clinch the women’s title.

Nearly 300 fencers participated in the weekend’s competition, the sixth Grand Prix of the nine-event series in the International Fencing Federation (FIE) 2017-2018 season, which was held at the venue of the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympic Games.

The men’s competition came down to a meeting between two-time Olympic gold medalist Szilagyi and Kim in the Final, and it was the former, currently ranked second in the world, who prevailed with some ease winning by 15 touches to 7.

To get there Szilagyi overcame France’s 15-13 in a closely-fought quarter-final, before seeing off Russia’s Kamil Ibragimov, 15-8 in the semi-finals. Kim for his part beat Italy’s Luigi Samele 15-9 in the quarter-finals ahead of narrowly making it past the world number three, USA’s Eli Dershwitz, 15-13, in the semi-finals.

The big shock of the competition came when the heavily-fancied top-ranked Bongil Gu, who was competing on home soil, was upset by Italy’s Stefano Scepi, ranked 63 in the world, 15-13 in the round of 32 stage.

The women’s event followed a similar pattern to the men’s competition in that three-time World Champion Kharlan, currently ranked number one in the world, beat world number three Marton, also by a 15-7 scoreline in the Final.

Kharlan’s progress to taking gold was by no means easy as she dented the hopes of another Korean on home soil, Sooyeon Choi, 15-11 in the quarter-finals, before edging past Romania’s Bianca Pascu, ranked four in the world, 15-14.

Marton’s path to the eventual silver medal saw her beat USA’s two-time gold medalist Mariel Zagunis, 15-6, in the quarter-finals, before accounting for Germany’s Anna Limbach, 15-8, in the semi-finals.

The next FIE Grand Prix is across the weekend of 11 to 13 May with the men’s and women’s sabre competitions in Moscow, Russia.