Sabre, Team, Men

Hungary had proved impossible to beat in this event since the 1928 Amsterdam Games but had been hit hard by defections following the Soviet invasion of 1956. Their team still included three holdovers from the Melbourne Games Aladár Gerevich, Rudolf Kárpáti, and Pál Kovács but all three were approaching or had passed the veteran stage of their careers. The Hungarian team did not crush their opponents as they had done in previous years but were still good enough to hold on to their title for the seventh consecutive time after defeating eventual bronze medallists Italy in the semi-final and Poland in the final.

For Aladár Gerevich this was a sixth consecutive title in the event. As of 2014 no one has matched this record. His record might well have extended to eight had not the war years intervened. Gerevich’s total of thirteen Olympic medals is absolute record for a fencer.