GEORGIA, August 9, 2022 - After all the frustration, Olympic fourth place with tears, screams and hugely controversial judge decisions, after big, but not an act of appropriate revenge on European championships, Georgian fencer, Sandro Bazadze finally got it. He won third place in fencing world championships and won the medal, he pursued all over his tough career.
Another huge milestone in Georgian fencing history was achieved in Cairo, Egypt, which held fencing world championships this July. Even though, Sandro, before starting the tournament, had clearly emphasized, that the only goal for him could be gold and only gold, what he did, should be considered as a great result, because this world champ’s bronze was the very first in independent Georgian fencing history.
Bazadze, who took part in sabre’s competition, began his way to the first Georgian big fencing medal, by an easy win against German number two, Frederick Kindler in first round ( 15:8). Hungarian number two, Csanad Gemesi was quite an opponent for the second round, as fencing remains as one of the most popular sports in Hungary. Anyway, Sandro made his best in clearing his road to round 3 by defeating Gemesi (15:12), where Chinese surprise, Shen Chenpeng was awaiting him. The interesting thing and not a small intrigue of this duel was the fact, that Shen defeated Sandro’s younger brother and Georgian number two, Beka Bazadze by a narrow margin in golden score 15:14 earlier that morning. The revenge was as sweat as quick -15:5 and Sandro found himself in quarterfinal, where Iranian number one, Ali Pakdaman was his opponent. Even though, not many expected Iranian fencer in such a late stage of world championships, Ali made the life for Bazadze really tough in quarterfinal, where he was only minus two before final tingling – 12:15 was the overall score. It was not only a battle for semifinal ticket, but for guaranteed medal (there is no third place match in world championships by the rules).
After the pretournament draw, it was already known, that potential final between two main headliners of sabre in recent years was impossible because their paths could be crossed already in semifinal. And it happened so.
The duel between the remaining European champion, Sandro Bazadze and three-time Olympic champion, legendary Hungarian, Aron Szilagyi, was in the spotlight for several reasons. The main of them was the fact, that it was a rematch of one of the most controversial battles in recent fencing history, Olympic semifinal, where Aron defeated Georgian number one (15:13) by not a very clear judge decisions.
Unfortunately, Szilagyi was best of two this time too. He took initiative from the beginning and, unlike the Olympics, never left the chance to 28 years old Georgian (15:11). Also, Hungarian beat Frenchman Maxime Pianfetti in the final and took his second world championships gold and ninth overall medal.
But it was all about Sandro Bazadze, who finally, in his 8-th world championships, took the medal, first for him and for Georgian independent history. Besides, he levelled up his and Georgia’s personal best becoming world number two, with only three points behind Szilagyi.
