SEOUL (Yonhap) – South Korea’s women’s sabre team won a bronze medal in the team event at the World Fencing Championships for the first time in four years.The women’s sabre team, comprised of Yoon Ji-soo, Jeon Ha-young (Seoul Metropolitan Government), Jeon Eun-hye (Incheon Jung-gu Office) and Choi Se-bin (Jeonnam-do), finished third behind Hungary and France in the team event at the 2023 World Championships in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday (local time).This is the first time in four years that Korea has placed in the women’s sabre team event at the World Championships after winning bronze at the 2019 event. The event was not held in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, and Korea finished 11th at last year’s event.At the tournament, South Korea defeated Turkiye 45-21 in the round of 16 and Azerbaijan 45-43 in the quarterfinals.In the semifinals, they lost 39-45 to Hungary to fall into the third-place game, but then defeated Ukraine 45-32 to earn a spot on the podium.The Ukrainian women’s sabre team was represented by Olha Harlan, who was disqualified from the individual competition after refusing to shake hands with a Russian player after a match.Harlan defeated her Russian opponent, Anna Smirnova, 15-7 in the individual round of 64, but was later disqualified for failing to shake hands, which is mandatory under 온라인카지노 the rules of the tournament. Ukraine has been at war since it was invaded by Russia in February last year.The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has promised Harlan a place at the Games, while the International Fencing Federation (FIE) has allowed her to compete in the team event, as the individual disqualification eliminated her chance to earn the world ranking points needed to qualify for next year’s Paris Games. Harlan showed tears of disappointment after her team’s 3-4 loss to South Korea denied them a medal.In the women’s sabre final, Hungary defeated France 45-38 to win the title.South Korea, which failed to add a medal to its tally in the men’s foil team event, finished the World Championships with one silver (men’s sabre team) and two bronze medals (women’s epee team and women’s sabre team) to finish seventh overall.Korean fencing has been in the world’s “top three” since 2017, when it finished third overall for the first time (1 gold, 2 silver), until last year (3 gold, 2 silver), but this year it was unable to secure a top three finish due to no individual podiums and the failure of the men’s sabre team to win its fifth consecutive gold medal.The overall title went to hosts Italy with four gold, four silver and two bronze medals.