World Championship winner Kim Jung-hwan is a right-handed sabre fencer from South Korea. Kim has won the team Asian championship seven times, the individual Asian championship twice, the team world championship twice, and the individual world championship in 2018. Kim has competed in three Olympics and has won two team Olympic gold medals as well as two individual bronze medals. The first South Korean fencer across all disciplines to earn a medal in both the individual and team events at a single Olympic Games, Kim is the first Asian fencer to win four Olympic medals. He is also the first South Korean fencer to medal at three consecutive Olympic Games.

In 2018, Kim won every gold medal possible in the team sabre competition at the Asian Games and the World Championships with his teammates Gu, Oh Sang-uk, and Kim Jun-ho. Kim also won gold in the individual competition at the World Championships, becoming the first person to do it. His final significant international competition was the Asian Games, and in December of that year, he formally declared his retirement from the national squad.

Kim remained a “player-coach” for the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation. Gu convinced him to rejoin the national squad in time for the Seoul Grand Prix, which was held in April 2019, when he won bronze. He became the first South Korean fencer (male or female, across all three disciplines) to earn a medal at three straight Olympic Games thanks to his two medals from the 2020 Olympics. Kim’s first Grand Prix gold since 2017 came in November 2021 at the Orleans Grand Prix.