Fencing: Korea foil China for gold

The victory gives Korea their first gold medal in the team fencing events at Doha 2006 as China have so far dominated the competitions. But in tonight's encounter, Korea took the lead from the start and never allowed China to dominate on the piste.

Korea was led by world No 2 and individual gold medallist Nam Hyun Hee, whose exceptionally fast and precise footwork gave her a strong advantage over opponents and allowed her to stretch the lead in every one of her three bouts.

In bout 4, Nam's contest with Chen Jinyan produced a series of complex interchanges and renewals that thrilled the crowd, giving Nam eight hits to Chen's five. Korea continued to increase their lead in the majority of bouts and, by the last clash, China were trailing 25 points to 36 when Su Wanwen began a rally - scoring 12 touches on her opponent Seo Mi Jung.

Seo fought back, however, and scored nine hits herself to make the score 45-37 in Korea's favour. Seo had beaten both Huang Jialing and Chen in the individual foil event, but failed to repeat the experience in this competition - scoring only one touch on Huang, but receiving three.

"Our tactics were good and I think it was a good line-up for our team," said jubilant double gold medallist Nam after the event. "The Chinese are difficult opponents, but I thought it was possible to beat them. It was a good match. Not only the result, but also the match itself was enjoyable. I didn't expect that I would win two golds.

"My main technique is counter-attack. And today, most of the time, I was able to win the point with a counter-attack. For me, it was helpful to keep my confidence. I was able to feel comfortable during the match."

Meanwhile, a disappointed Chen said, "I think it wasn't too bad. We were still a little tight. I wanted just to open up [in the third from last bout], relax and chase those points back. But I am just not as experienced. There was a point when I was falling behind by five points. I didn't want to attack any more."

Responding to what she thought of the gold medal match, Su remarked, "We didn't play very well in the first half of the game. That made us very passive in the latter half. We didn't respond to the Koreans' changes in rhythm and tactics fast enough. I think it was because we have some problems in being alert to changing tactics.

"Of course we wanted the gold medal. But Korea is stronger than us - that is the truth. So we will continue to make efforts to improve when we get back home."

15th Asian Games, Doha 2006