Olympics 2012 Fencing: Aron Szilagyi Wins Men’s Sabre Gold

Diego Occhiuzzi (ITA), Aron Szilagyi (HUN), and Nikolay Kovalev (RUS) on the medal stand.

Olympics 2012 Fencing: Aron Szilagyi Wins Men’s Sabre Gold

Aron Szilagyi (HUN) dominated his semi-final and final matches to secure the gold medal in Men’s Sabre at the 2012 Olympic Games.  Szilagyi defeated Diego Occhiuzzi 15-8 to claim the gold medal.  Nikolay Kovalev (RUS) won the bronze medal with a 15-7 win over Rares Dumitrescu (ROU).

Aron Szilagyi stormed to a 7-0 lead in the gold medal bout, leaving Occhiuzzi struggling to find any way to answer the Hungarian’s precise control of the distance in the bout.  He finally managed to score a point and went into the minute break with Szilagyi up 8-1.

In the second period, Occhiuzzi came out to fight scoring two touches to bring him up to 3 but was unable to develop any sustained run.  The opposite, in fact, happened as Szilagyi had the answer for every change that Occhiuzzi made and won the bout 15-8.

Szilagyi (right) had an answer for everything in the medal rounds tonight.

Nikolay Kovalev (RUS) put aside his disappointment in his semi-final loss and started out the bronze medal bout with a 3-0 lead on Dumitrescu.  Dumitrescu would fight back, and go on a 3-0 run of his own to have the bout starting to slip away down 8-3 at the break.

Kovalev kept the pressur out after the minute break, capping off a 6-0 run to go up 10-3.  Dumitrescu would answer with a 4-0 run of his own, closing the bout to 10-7.  Kovalev would let the bout get no closer, however, and put it away 15-10 for the bronze medal.

In the semi-finals, Szilagyi went out to a blistering start, putting Kovalev down 5-1, then 8-5 at the break.  In the second period, Kovalev attempted to slow Szilagyi’s attacks down with a reaching line and attempts to take the blade, but the Hungarian largely ignored all of the distractions and just kept on hitting – running away with a 7-2 second period to close the bout 15-7.

The second semi-final bout would be much closer, but with only one tie at 1-1.  Diego Occhiuzzi won his 2nd point to go up 2-1 and never looked back, holding the lead throughout the match.  He was up 8-5 at the break and then would string together a few mini-runs of 2 or 3 touches apiece to win the bout 15-11.