U.S. fencers Kiefer, Scruggs make history with gold, silver in women’s foil

Kano made history for Japan in the men’s epee gold medal match against host country favorite Yannick Borel of France.

After a penalty for passivity in the first bout, the match picked up with Kano quickly gaining a lead over Borel and ultimately prevailing with an aggressive lunge that secured a 15-9 win.

“I wanted to come here and get gold in the individual and I just did it,” Kano said.

Kano may add a second gold medal from this Games when he attempts to defend his title in the Olympic men’s team epee event on August 2. Borel’s silver medal is his first finish on the men’s individual epee podium out of four Olympics.

“It feels good to have a medal but it feels bad to lose the match,” Borel said.

Earlier, in the first men’s semifinal match, Kano was victorious in a tight match against Tibor Andrasfi of Hungary. The two were tied 13-13 before going into a sudden-death tiebreaker round. Andrasfi had the priority, but Kano scored a touch to advance to the gold medal match.

After a minute of passivity in the other men’s semifinal match, Borel had the support of a roaring French crowd as he defeated Egypt’s Mohamed Elsayed 15-9 to move forward to the final.

The bronze medal match between Andrasfi and Elsayed concluded with dramatic clashes for the final touch.

Tied 7-7, the match went into a one-minute sudden-death overtime round with Elsayed holding the priority. After several double touches that were not counted before time ran out, the clock was rolled back to 4.47 seconds. Elsayed and Andrasfi both attempted to score touches twice, and at the 2.29-second mark, Elsayed was able to go around the blade to score the winning touch in a counterattack.

“It was so, so intense. A lot of suspense happened in the last period,” Elsayed, the first African fencer to win a medal in this event, said. “It just feels amazing when you win and you realize that you’re getting an Olympic medal.”

Men’s individual epee medalists
🥇Koki Kano (JPN)
🥈Yannick Borel (FRA)
🥉Mohamed Elsayed (EGY)

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