I feel disappointed for Aron Szilagyi. The Hungarian champ was, almost without exception, everyone's pick for the individual men's sabre gold in Paris, but was knocked out in the group of 32 stage.
Fares Arfa - Canadian sabreur - led Szilagyi 6-0 within the first minute of play, which was stunning to see. From the footage, I don't believe the spectators knew what to think. Szilagyi recovered to 6-4, but couldn't prevent Afra landing a further two hits, for the Canadian to lead 8-4 at the end of the first period.
Szilagyi remained wrong-footed throughout the rest of the bout, which ended in the second period when Arfa landed his fifteenth touch to win 15-8, with 2:27 still on the clock.
Not a result anyone would've predicted.
"I'm in a bit of shock right now, so I'm not even disappointed or angry at myself yet. It happened so fast, and I've never thought that my individual competition here in Paris would be so short," Szilagyi said. "It's really a shock. It's like my opponent read me. I was an open book to him. "In every touch, what he wanted, it happened. All his parries worked, all his attacks landed."
Arfa, the 27th seed, made it to the quarterfinals where he was defeated by the eventual gold medallist, Korea's Oh Sang-uk. His eighth-place result is the best individual result for a Canadian fencer at an Olympics since Michel Dessureault (tenth place in men's épée) at the 1984 LA Games.
Results on the Olympic website
AP article
Canadian Press article
