Asia

OLYMPICS From European tradition to Eastern discipline: Asia’s medals in fencing

In the first two days of competition, Asian fencers won three out of four gold medals. A sport that is increasingly popular in South Korea and Japan, while Hong Kong is on the verge of elevating it to a national sport. Vivian Kong Mai-wai’s victory in women’s epee followed that of Edgar Cheung Ka-long, who had become a star of the city with gold in men’s foil at Tokyo 2020.

Paris () – After two days of Olympic competitions, three of the four gold medals in fencing were won by Asian countries. Vivian Kong Mai-wai of Hong Kong won the women’s epee, while South Korean Oh Sang-uk took the podium in the men’s sabre and Kano Koki of Japan in the men’s epee. And even the American Lee Kiefer, who won (again) the women’s foil, also has Asian origins: her mother, Teresa, was born in the Philippines and emigrated to the United States as a young woman.

The fencing competitions are scheduled to run until 4 August and there are still several medals up for grabs. But there is no doubt that a traditionally European discipline (originally practised mainly in Italy and France and then in Hungary) such as fencing has now become internationally recognised and has also been very popular in Asia, at least for the past ten years.

South Korea has won at least one gold medal in fencing at every edition since the 2012 London Games, and Oh Sang-uk was a three-time world champion before winning gold in Paris. The men’s team arrived in France with a new line-up, which had already won a silver medal in March at the World Championships in Budapest. Gu Bon-gil, Oh Sang-uk, Park Sang-won and Do Gyeong-dong will now attempt the feat of winning a third consecutive gold in the men’s team sabre (a competition not scheduled for Rio 2016), a goal so far only achieved by Hungary, which dominated the discipline from 1928 to 1960 and won seven consecutive titles. The women’s epee team, after silver at Tokyo 2020, is also aiming for Olympic gold.

In Japan, the popularity of fencing is growing, thanks to the successes of recent years (in Tokyo, Kano Koki had already won gold, but in the team competition), but more slowly; if South Korea ranks fifth in the world in terms of popularity of the discipline at national level, Japan ranks eleventh. And according to some commentators, it is no coincidence that fencing is becoming increasingly popular in countries where several types of martial arts originated, including, for example, Japanese kendo, a combat sport in which bamboo swords are used instead of the traditional katanas of the samurai.

Hong Kong is a different story. Three years ago, the former British colony had already surprised the world with its first Olympic gold in fencing: Edgar Cheung Ka-long defeated Italian foil champion Daniele Garozzo in the final, becoming a national star overnight. The feat could be repeated after Vivian Kong Man-wai won the gold two days ago when she beat local athlete Auriane Mallo in the epee. Vivian lived in Canada from the age of two to six, has repeatedly refused naturalisation proposals from the Ottawa federation and has overcome two serious cruciate ligament injuries before arriving in Paris.

Fencing, introduced to Hong Kong during British colonial rule, began to enjoy its first international successes in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, it was not until the 2010 Asian Games that the city of 7.5 million people emerged as a new regional power, with Hong Kong fencers winning seven medals. This was the result of promotion in schools by government institutions, similar to what happens in mainland China.

Yeung Wing-sunpresident of the Hong Kong Fencing Association, believes that the number of people interested in the discipline has increased by 30% since Cheung’s victory in 2021. And Lobo Louie Hung-tak, a professor of physical education at the Education University of Hong Kong, believes that fencing could even become the national sport. So much so that the Education Department has proposed including it among the evaluation criteria for secondary school entrance.



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