Épée, Team, Women

Though Romania was ranked second before the event, their victory in the final against top seeded PR China, whose team included two fencers from the London 2012 gold medal team, Sun Yujie and Xu Anqi, came as a surprise. The final was also revenge for the 2015 World Championships final in Moscow, when China defeated Romania. The Rio semi-finalists were made up of the top four seeded teams, with Romania easily beating Russia 45–31 in one semi-, and China defeating Estonia 45–36 in the other. The London 2012 silver and bronze medalists, Korea and the United States, were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Estonia and Romania, respectively. Romania’s victory over the USA was secured in extra-time.

In the final, Romania led from the first to the last period after the Beijing 2008 individual silver medalist Ana Maria Brânză-Popescu gave Romania a 1–0 advantage, which was increased by Simona Pop, Simona Gherman and substitute Loredana Dinu to 24–16 after seven periods. It was Popescu, who secured the gold medal, edging out China’s Xu Anqi. China’s silver medal was the country’s 500th medal in the history of the Olympics bringing them to seventh place in the all-time ranking. Russia claimed the bronze medal by defeating Estonia 37–31. It was Tatyana Logunova’s third team épée medal in her fifth Olympic appearance, after gold medals in Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004.