▲ Gu Bon-gil of South Korea celebrates a point against Italy during the final of the men's team sabre fencing event at the Tokyo Olympics at Makuhari Messe Hall B in Chiba, Japan, on July 28, 2021. (Yonhap)
▲ Kim Jung-hwan of South Korea celebrates a point against Italy during the final of the men's team sabre fencing event at the Tokyo Olympics at Makuhari Messe Hall B in Chiba, Japan, on July 28, 2021. (Yonhap)
▲ Oh Sang-uk of South Korea (R) battles Aldo Montano of Italy during the final of the men's team sabre fencing event at the Tokyo Olympics at Makuhari Messe Hall B in Chiba, Japan, on July 28, 2021. (Yonhap)

(Olympics) S Korea-fencing gold

(Olympics) S. Korea defends gold in men's team sabre fencing

By Yoo Jee-ho

CHIBA, Japan, July 28 (Yonhap) -- South Korea captured its second straight gold medal in the men's team sabre fencing on Wednesday, joining a short list of fencing powerhouses with multiple Olympic titles in the discipline.

The team of Kim Jung-hwan, Gu Bon-gil, Oh Sang-uk and Kim Jun-ho took down Italy 45-26 in the gold medal match at Makuhari Messe Hall B in Chiba, east of Tokyo, on Wednesday.

This is the fourth gold medal for South Korea at the Tokyo Olympics, and the first to come from a sport other than archery.

South Korea won the men's team sabre title in London in 2012, but the event was not included in the program for the 2016 Olympics. From 2004 to 2016, with 12 fencing events on hand but only 10 gold medal allocated to the sport, two team events had to be rotated out each time. The Tokyo Games are the first to award gold medals to all six individual and six team events.

Other than South Korea, only France, Italy, Hungary, Russia and the old Soviet Union have ever claimed the men's sabre team gold. All of them have won multiple titles.

Kim Jung-hwan and Gu were also members of the 2012 team. Kim has won individual bronze medals at each of the past two Olympics and now has four medals overall.

This was the first Olympic medal for Oh and Kim Jun-ho.

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