 |
Do Gyeong-dong of South Korea (right) competes against Krisztian Rabb of Hungary during the final of the men's sabre fencing team event at the Paris Olympics at Grand Palais in Paris on Wednesday. (Yonhap) |
PARIS -- They say all good things come in threes. At the Paris Olympics on Wednesday, South Korea collected its third consecutive gold medal in the men's sabre team event.
Oh Sang-uk, Gu Bon-gil, Park Sang-won and Do Gyeong-dong pushed South Korea past France 45-41 in the final, making South Korea the first Asian country to win three straight team fencing medals in Olympic history.
The streak started in 2012 in London. The men's sabre team event was not included in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics due to a rotation system, and when it made its way back in Tokyo five years later, South Korea won the gold medal again.
This time, with Park and Do having replaced two veterans from 2021, Kim Jung-hwan and Kim Jun-ho, South Korea knocked off Canada, France and Hungary in succession for the gold.
Oh, who had earlier won the individual title, became the first double gold medalist for South Korea in Paris. He is now also the first South Korean fencer to capture two gold medals at a single Olympics.
South Korea now has six gold medals after five days of competition, already one more than the initial target set by the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee.
Also on Wednesday, South Korea assured itself of at least a silver medal in the mixed doubles event in badminton, after a semifinal match between teams from the country was set up.
Seo Seung-jae and Chae Yu-jung, and Kim Won-ho and Jeong Na-eun each won their quarterfinal matches, and will square off Thursday with a ticket to the final at stake.
South Korean archers continued their march through the early stages of their individual events.
In the women's competition, Nam Su-hyeon defeated Jana Ali of Egypt 7-1 in the round of 64, and then Marie Horacova of the Czech Republic 7-3 in the round of 32.
Lee Woo-seok also won both of his knockout matches on Wednesday. He beat Peter Boukouvalas of Australia 6-0 in the round of 64, and then eliminated Alessandro Paoli of Italy in the round of 32 with a 6-0 win.
Lee struck 10 with 12 of his 18 arrows across those two victories.
Another male archer, Kim Je-deok, had his round of 64 match postponed to Thursday due to rain.
Also on Wednesday, the women's and the men's singles events continued in table tennis, with South Korean players winning their knockout matches.
Shin Yu-bin, fresh off her bronze medal in the mixed doubles from Tuesday, won twice Wednesday. She first defeated Georgina Pota of Hungary in the round of 32 by 4-1 (9-11, 11-9, 11-4, 11-1, 11-9) in the morning.
About nine hours later in the round of 16, Shin beat Lily Zhang of the United States 4-0 (11-2, 11-8, 11-4, 15-13).
Also on Wednesday, Jang Woo-jin advanced to the men's singles quarterfinals, after defeating Shunsuke Togami of Japan 4-0 (11-7, 18-16, 12-10, 11-9) in the round of 16.
In the men's -90-kilogram judo event, Han Ju-yeop missed out on a medal after losing to world No. 1 from Georgia, Lasha Bekauri, in the quarterfinals, and then falling to Rafael Macedo of Brazil in the repechage match.
