Hungary's Áron Szilágyi Writes Olympic History

Just like in London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro five years ago, Áron Szilágyi won the men's individual event at the Tokyo Olympics, and with his triple victory he made sporting history.

Szilágyi put up a stunning performance all day, and in the evening local time final he produced a superb fencing display to beat Luigi Samele of Italy 15-7.

Apart from Áron Szilágyi, four of his great predecessors – Hungarians Jenő Fuchs and Rudolf Kárpáti, Viktor Krovopuskov of the Soviet Union and Jean-Francois Lamour of France – managed to defend their men's sword titles at the Olympics, but no one has ever managed to triple in the individual event. In fact, in the other men's disciplines, there has never been a anyone who has won three times in the same event in the individual competition.

Szilágyi started the day with a 15-7 win over Venezuela's José Quintero and Iran's Mojtaba Abedini before beating Iran's Ali Pakdaman 15-6 in the quarter-finals and Georgia's Sandro Bazadze 15-13 in the last four. Samele followed up a 15-12 win over China's Hsu with a 15-7 win over Iran's Rahbari and a 15-10 win over his compatriot Berre. In the semi-finals, he came back from 6-12 down to beat Kim Jung Hvan of South Korea 15-12. As a member of the Italian team, he won an Olympic bronze before and several silver medals at world championship, but has not had any outstanding results in singles.

In the final bout, Szilágyi, ranked fourth in the world, started better, taking a 3-0 lead in no time, and although her rival then rallied, the Hungarian fencer easily scored another set to take a 7-1 lead. Samele then came back to 7-5, but the last hit before the break was again Szilágyi's (8-5). At 12-5, the Italian tried to show his bravado again, but this time, he could only manage two hits, and could neither equalize nor turn the game around.

"I had a lot of doubts before the day, I was up for two hours in the middle of the night and at breakfast, I forgot to drink my usual coffee. I arrived at the hall in a strange state, but sooner or later, everything fell into place. I drank my coffee, I got over my first opponent and after that, the fencing got better and better," he told Hungarian journalists.

"I have yet to realize what I did today to become a three-time Olympic champion in the individual event. I don't think I'm the biggest legend in this sport, but I'm certainly very proud of what I've achieved today and in the last nine years," he said.