Song Sera wins gold medal in women's epee fencing individual event at 2026 Asian Games

(Tokoname [Japan] = Yonhap News) Reporter Choi Song-ah and Kim Dong-han = Fencing women's epee 'ace' Song Sera (33, Busan Metropolitan City Hall) won the sixth gold medal for the Korean team at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.

Song Sera won the women's epee individual finals, defeating Tikkana Kiria (Singapore) 15-8, held at the Aichi Sky Expo in Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture, Japan on the 22nd.

This is the 6th gold medal for the Korean team in this competition, following the women's individual modern pentathlon (Seung-min Seong), men's team event, men's techball singles (Jun-seok Lee), men's basketball, swimming management, and men's 50m freestyle (Young-beom Kim).

Song Sera, ranked 3rd in the women's epee world rankings and winner of the individual event at the 2022 and this year's World Championships, won gold for the first time in the individual event at an international competition.

Korea maintained the top spot in the women's epee individual event at the Asian Games for three consecutive times, following Kang Young-mi at the 2018 Jakarta/Palembang competition and Choi In-jeong at the 2022 Hangzhou competition held in 2023.

Song Se-ra, who won the silver medal in Hangzhou three years ago by losing the final match to national team senior Choi In-jeong, won her first gold medal in an individual event at an international all-around competition in her second attempt.

In the women's epee fencing individual competition, medals were decided through single-round matches starting from the round of 32.

Song Sera, who passed the round of 32 on this day by default, defeated Taniksha Khatri (India) 15-9 in the round of 16, and then won 15-14 in the quarterfinals after a close match with world number 10 Tang Junyao (China), who had an opponent record of 1 win and 1 loss.

Song Sera, who gained momentum by roaring after her dramatic victory over Tang Junyao, also experienced a crisis in the semifinals against Tamaki Terayama (Japan).

With the score tied at 7-7, the team took the lead by scoring the first point with an accurate lower body attack, but after conceding two consecutive goals and allowing a comeback, they were dragged down.

The defeat deepened as she was pushed to 11-13 from a slight disadvantage, but Song Sera's attack targeting the opponent's upper body was successful with 7 seconds left at 13-14, dramatically extending the game to overtime, and advancing to the finals of the Asian Games for the second time in a row by scoring one point first.

The final against Kiria, ranked 100th in the world, was not easy.

After conceding two points in the first half, Song Sera immediately counterattacked and took a 3-2 lead. In the second half of the second round, Song Sera made an attack that caught her opponent off guard at 8-7 and entered the third round with a 10-7 score.

In the third round, against Kiria (171cm), who was taller and had longer arms than her, Song Sera freely attacked both the upper and lower body and ran away to 13-7, finally completing the 'golden thrust'.

Up to two people from each country can participate in the fencing individual event at this Asian Games.

On this day, Lim Tae-hee (Gyeryong City Hall), who participated in the women's epee individual competition along with Song Sera, was eliminated in the round of 16, losing 13-15 to Vladislava Andreyeva (Kazakhstan).

The Korean women's epee team, led by Song Sera and Lim Tae-hee, is aiming for a gold medal in the team event on the 25th.

Korean fencing got off to a refreshing start on the first day of the competition, aiming for its fifth consecutive Asian Games overall victory with Song Sera's gold medal and Yoon Jeong-hyeon's (Hwaseong City Hall) bronze medal in the men's foil individual event.

Jeong-Hyun Yoon became the first Korean athlete to win the men's foil individual event at the Asian Games in eight years since Son Young-Ki (bronze medal) at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games.

Kazuki Iimura (Japan) won the men's foil individual event, and Ryan Choi (Hong Kong), who defeated Jeong-Hyun Yoon in the semifinals, won the silver medal.

On the 23rd, the men's saber and women's foil individual exhibitions will be held. In the men's saber, Oh Sang-wook (Daejeon Metropolitan City Hall) will defend his title.