Fencing at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Men's team épée

Men's team épée at the Games of the XXXII Olympiad
Olympic fencing
Venue	Makuhari Messe
Date	30 July 2021
Competitors	34 from 9 nations
Medalists
Koki Kano Kazuyasu Minobe Masaru Yamada Satoru Uyama  Japan Sergey Bida Sergey Khodos Pavel Sukhov Nikita Glazkov  ROC Park Sang-young Ma Se-geon Song Jae-ho Kweon Young-jun  South Korea

The men's team épée event at the 2020 Summer Olympics took place on 30 July 2021 at the Makuhari Messe. 27 fencers (9 teams of 3) from 9 nations competed. The competition was won by Japan, with Russian Olympic athletes taking silver and South Korea bronze. The previous medal of Russia in men's team épée was in 1996; Japan and South Korea never medaled in this event. The 2016 champions and silver medalist, Italy and France, did not make it to the semifinals, the bronze medalist, Hungary, did not quality for the Olympics.

Background

This will be the 25th appearance of the event, which has been held at every Summer Olympics since 1908 except 2012 (during the time when team events were rotated off the schedule, with only two of the three weapons for each of the men's and women's categories).

The reigning Olympic champion is France (Gauthier Grumier, Yannick Borel, Daniel Jérent, and Jean-Michel Lucenay); France has won the last three Olympic Games. France is also the reigning World Champion, with Borel, Jérent, Ronan Gustin, and Alexandre Bardenet on the 2019 winning team.

Qualification

Main article: Fencing at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Qualification

A National Olympic Committee (NOC) could enter a team of 3 fencers in the men's team épée. These fencers also automatically qualified for the individual event.

There are 8 dedicated quota spots for men's team épée. They are allocated as through the world team ranking list of 5 April 2021. The top 4 spots, regardless of geographic zone, qualify (France, Italy, Ukraine, and Switzerland). The next four spots are allocated to separate geographic zones, as long as an NOC from that zone is in the top 16. These places went to South Korea (Asia/Oceania), the United States (Americas), and ROC (Europe); no team from Africa was in the top 16, so the place was reallocated to the next-best team regardless of zone: China.

Additionally, there are 8 host/invitational spots that can be spread throughout the various fencing events. Japan qualified one men's épée fencer through normal individual qualification and used two host quota places to complete a men's épée team.

The COVID-19 pandemic delayed many of the events for qualifying for fencing, moving the close of the rankings period back to April 5, 2021 rather than the original April 4, 2020.

Competition format

The 2020 tournament is a single-elimination tournament, with classification matches for all places. Each match features the three fencers on each team competing in a round-robin, with 9 three-minute bouts to 5 points; the winning team is the one that reaches 45 total points first or is leading after the end of the nine bouts. Standard épée rules regarding target area, striking, and priority are used.

Schedule

The competition is held over a single day, Friday, 30 July. The first session runs from 10 a.m. to approximately 3:20 p.m. (when all matches except the bronze and gold medal finals are expected to conclude), after which there is a break until 6:30 p.m. before the medal bouts are held.

All times are Japan Standard Time (UTC+9)

Date	Time	Round
Friday, 30 July 2021	10:00         18:30	Round of 16 Quarterfinals Semifinals Classification 7/8 Classification 5/6 Bronze medal match Gold medal match

Results

	Round of 16				Quarter-finals				Semi-finals				Final
					France	44
					Japan	45
	United States	39
	Japan	45
									Japan	45
									South Korea	38
					South Korea	44
					Switzerland	39
													Japan	45
													ROC	36
					Ukraine	35
					China	45
									China	38
									ROC	45			Bronze medal bout
					ROC	45							South Korea	45
					Italy	34							China	42

5–8th place classification

	5–8th place semifinals				Fifth place bout
	France	45
	Switzerland	37
					France	45
					Ukraine	39
	Ukraine	45
	Italy	39
					Seventh place bout
					Switzerland	34
					Italy	36

Final classification

Rank	Team	Athlete
	Japan	Koki Kano Kazuyasu Minobe Masaru Yamada Satoru Uyama
	ROC	Sergey Bida Sergey Khodos Pavel Sukhov Nikita Glazkov
	South Korea	Park Sang-young Ma Se-geon Song Jae-ho Kweon Young-jun
4	China	Dong Chao Lan Minghao Wang Zijie
5	France	Alexandre Bardenet Yannick Borel Romain Cannone Ronan Gustin
6	Ukraine	Ihor Reizlin Bohdan Nikishyn Roman Svichkar Anatoliy Herey
7	Italy	Andrea Santarelli Enrico Garozzo Gabriele Cimini Marco Fichera
8	Switzerland	Max Heinzer Lucas Malcotti Michele Niggeler Benjamin Steffen
9	United States	Jacob Hoyle Curtis McDowald Yeisser Ramirez

External links

• Draw Archived 1 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine