Sabre, Team, Men

After missing the Los Angeles Olympics, the Soviet Union had returned to completely dominate the event and win all three World Championship in the years leading up to the Games of Seoul. The Soviets easily reached the final where they would meet Hungary. Hungary had beaten Poland on a tie breaker in the quarter-final before upsetting Italy in the semi-final. Things looked bleak for the Hungarians when they trailed 7-3 to the USSR but they rebounded to draw level at 7-7 and shared the final bouts to tie 8-8. Since Hungary had recorded 3 more hits over the 16 bouts they were awarded the Olympic title for the first time since their run of 7 Olympic titles was ended in 1964. The bronze medal duel between Italy and France was suspended when the French team walked off in protest at the refereeing of the match. After a half hour the French were convinced to resume and rallied to force an 8-8 tie but Italy recorded a single hit more than their opponents and won by 64-63 on the tiebreaker.