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| Men's and women's sabre world class penner Ha Yong-young Algeria World Cup gold medal (left) and Oh Sang-wook bronze medal. Photo courtesy = Korea Fencing Federation |
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'Return Sabre Emperor' Oh Sang-wook (13th in the world) won the bronze medal in the first World Cup of the season.
Oh Sang-wook, a two-time winner of the individual and team events at the Paris Olympics, put down the national flag for a year immediately after the Paris Olympics and gained new experience. At his team's Daejeon City Hall, he carried out various activities such as fencing, broadcasting, and entertainment. Having enjoyed the wide world by challenging new fields other than fencing for the first time since starting his career, he returned to the Jincheon National Training Center ahead of the Aichi and Nagoya Asian Games season and has been fiercely preparing for the new season by sweating hot drops with his juniors.
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| Alger, World Cup Women's and Men's Saber, 2025Photo by Eva Pavia #BizziTeam - FIE |
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At the Algeria World Cup, the first tournament of the season, he made it to the semifinals alone and announced the return of the king to the world stage. Oh Sang-wook defeated Japan's Kokubo Mao 15-12 in the men's sabre individual round of the Fencing Federation (FIE) World Cup held in Algeria on the 9th (Korea time) and beat Romania's Vlad Kovalio 15-7 in the quarterfinals to confirm his advance to the semifinals. In the semifinals, he missed the final by a clean margin of 14-15 after a bloody battle with his nemesis Fares Perjani (Turkey, world No. 8). Colin Heathcock, the world's fifth-ranked player, won the final, beating Perjani 15-12. Although top rankers such as world No. 1 Jean-Philippe Patrice (France) and No. 2 Sandro Bajaje (Georgia) were absent from this tournament, Oh Sang-wook made a good first step by showing off his strong performance on the return stage to the World Cup in the new season with the national flag.
Younger Jeon Ha-young (Seoul City Hall), who was from Songchon High School in Daejeon and talked about as 'Women Oh Sang-wook', won the women's individual final by beating Suga Katinka Batai, world No. 7, 15-12, and 'Daejeon Siblings' took to the podium side by side.
Reporter Jeon Young-ji sky4us@sportschosun.com
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
