Foil, Team, Men

Italy and China, the 2003 World Championship finalists, proved to be much too good for their opposition and cruised into the Olympic final with virtually no difficulty. The final was to be mired in controversy thanks to decisions made by the Hungarian referee József Hidasi. Italy won the title after scoring three successive points with the scores tied at 42 all but the Chinese were incensed by a number of Hidasi’s decisions that all seemed to go against them. An official review of the final determined that there were six obvious scoring mistakes and that each one of them favoured the Italians. Since no protocol existed to allow a protest, the result had to stand even though Hidasi was given a two-year suspension for his poor performance.