Foil flourish ensures wheelchair fencer Dimitri Coutya completes his title collection after glorious golden day in Paris
Dimitri Coutya secured the only wheelchair fencing title missing from his stellar CV as he magnificently won Category B foil Paralympic gold in Paris on Wednesday.
The multiple World and European Champion, who won one silver and three bronze medals in Tokyo three years ago, was determined to end his wait for the biggest prize of all and produced three outstanding performances to fulfil his ambition.
Bath-based Coutya, as top seed, was given a bye to the quarter-finals where he quickly despatched Thailand’s Visit Kingmanaw 15-5. That set up a rematch against Ukraine’s Dymtro Serozhenko, who had ended Coutya’s bid for a sabre bronze medal on Tuesday.
There was no repeat this time round as Coutya eased into an 8-3 lead at the interval before securing his place in the final with an emphatic 15-4 success.
Defending champion Yanke Feng of China was then beaten 15-7 in just over 10 minutes to secure a first Paralympic gold for Coutya, who trains in the Wheelchair Fencing National Training Centre at the University of Bath.
The Category A foil competition saw Oliver Lam-Watson make his Paralympic debut in an individual event. He was handed a tough draw and lost 15-2 to defending champion Gang Sun of China in the last 16 but fenced impressively in the repechage, beating Byron Branch of the United States 15-7 and Poland’s Michal Nalewajek 15-10.
He was then involved in an epic contest against Richard Osvath, a foil medallist at the past three Games and top seed in Paris, which the Hungarian eventually edged 15-14.
Lam-Watson and Coutya will join up with Category A sabre silver-medallist Piers Gilliver for the men’s foil team competition on Thursday, an event in which they won silver at the Tokyo Games.
Picture credit: imagecomms
