Olympic gold medalist Oh Sang-uk is a right-handed sabre fencer from South Korea. Oh has won the team Asian championship four times, the individual Asian title in 2019, the team world championship three times, and the individual world championship once. Oh participated in his first Summer Olympic Games and was a part of the South Korean team that won gold in the team men’s sabre event in Tokyo in 2020.
Oh won four gold medals in 2019, taking home victories in the team and individual competitions at the Asian and World Championships. The gold medal-winning team from the 2017 and 2018 Worlds reunited, Kim Jung-hwan came out of retirement, and they qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics, which were delayed for a year. He almost didn’t get to compete since he got COVID-19 months before the Olympics and then hurt his ankle during pre-competition training.
Oh qualified for the individual event by entering the Olympics as the world’s top-ranked athlete. In the quarterfinals, he fell to Sandro Bazadze. When they won the team event’s gold, he received his first Olympic medal. He scored the final point in a close 45-42 victory over Germany in the team semifinals to advance South Korea to the final for the second time in a row. South Korea was leading Italy in the final with a score of 40-21 when Oh almost gave up the lead, but he managed to score the final five points to secure a 45-26 victory—exactly the same result as the final nine years earlier. You can follow him on Instagram @ohsu.o_o, where he boasts more than 110,000 followers.
