Paris, France, August 4, 2024: Heading into the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Japan had won only three Olympic medals all-time in fencing.
Yet, on Sunday night, Japan celebrated their fifth medal of Paris 2024 with gold in men’s foil team at Grand Palais.
Japan beat Italy 45-36 despite trailing by two points at 20-18 after four relays and by 25-23 after five. Japan outscored Italy 22-11 the rest of the way.
Alternate Yudai Nagano put Japan on the road to gold with a 5-0 result in the eighth relay against Alessio Foconi, giving Japan the lead at 40-34, and 20-year-old Kazuki Iimura completed the job.
The Japan team was Takahiro Shikine, Kazuki Iimura, Kyosuke Matsuyama and Yudai Nagano.
Matsuyama said Japan’s first Olympic gold medal in men’s team foil would be important for the future.
"We still can't believe what we achieved today. This means a lot for the future of fencing in Japan, and I hope that in the next Olympics and in the future, many more Japanese will take up fencing and win more medals,” Matsuyama said.
"It's four years before the next Olympics, we will be defending, but every country will be trying to beat us, so we will continue to work hard to defend this medal."
Commenting on the grand surroundings of the Grand Palais, Matsuyama added: "It's an amazing venue. This is my second Olympic Games but at Tokyo 2020 there were no crowds, so to be here and hear people cheering for us and for everybody else, what a feeling. I really enjoyed this competition."
France earlier beat the USA 45-32 to win bronze.
Japan concludes the Paris 2024 fencing competition on top of the medal table with two golds, one silver and two bronze.