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Park Sang-won, Gu Bon-gil, Oh Sang-uk and Do Gyeong-dong of South Korea (from left) celebrate after winning the gold medal in the men's sabre fencing team event at the Paris Olympics at Grand Palais in Paris on Wednesday. (Yonhap) |
PARIS -- South Korea seized its third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the men's sabre fencing team competition on Wednesday in Paris, becoming just the second country ever to win at least three gold medals in a row in that event.
World No. 1 South Korea defeated third-ranked Hungary 45-41 in the gold medal match of the Paris Summer Games at Grand Palais in the French capital.
Oh Sang-uk, Gu Bon-gil and Park Sang-won started in the final, with Do Gyeong-dong subbing in for Gu later.
Oh, who won the individual sabre title on Saturday, became the first South Korean fencer to win two gold medals at a single Olympics.
He is also South Korea's first double gold medalist in Paris.
Gu, 34, has been on all three gold medal-winning teams. This is the first Olympic gold for Park and Do.
The men's sabre team event was first contested at the 1908 Summer Olympic Games in London, and only one other country has won at least three gold medals in a row, with Hungary claiming seven straight titles from 1928 to 1960.
South Korea started the streak in 2012. The men's sabre team event was not part of the 2016 Olympics, with the now-defunct rotation system leaving it off the program, and it rejoined the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021.
Team fencing events are contested in a series of head-to-head bouts. Each bout is three minutes long but it ends when one team's score reaches a multiple of five.
The objective is to score 45 points first or to have more points than the opponent at the end of the ninth bout.
South Korea won each of the first three bouts to build a 15-11 lead.
Hungary began pushing back, and cut the deficit to 18-17 during the fourth bout between Park and Krisztian Rabb, before Park won the final two points to close out that bout.
Hungary briefly took a lead at 26-25 and then at 28-27 during the sixth bout between Oh and Andras Szatmari. Oh did get to 30 points first, but the lead was now just 30-29.
Do, who had not competed in the quarterfinals or the semifinals, stepped in for Gu to take on Rabb. And in his very first Olympic bout, Do scored five unanswered points to stake South Korea to a 35-29 lead.
Park extended that lead to seven at 40-33, after winning his bout 5-4.
In the ninth and last bout, Oh survived some nervy moments against Aron Szilagyi, who had won three previous individual Olympic gold medals before this year. Szilagyi won the first three points of the bout but Oh managed to push South Korea across the finish line.
