STEFFEN vs PARK 공원- 2016 Rio Olympic Games Men’s EPEE Individual SEMI-FINAL

it's a swiss benjamin stefan of switzerland and he will take on park sangyong of korea there is stefan six foot two 34 years old superbly experienced spencer but never been at an olympic games before and certainly never been in this position and his opponent just 20 years old a really really fast and energetic and yeah bundle of energy fencer he's taken out garroza and heitzer on his way to this semi-final park won the asian games in 2014 referee for this contest juan liendo of venezuela yeah well just a little refresher fa is a point weapon you've got to hit uh your opponent with the tip of your sword the whole body is target and there's no right of way rules here so it's a purest form of fencing it's the first one to hit and you want to try and avoid getting hit there are times when both fences hit each other at the same time and they can both score points at the same time it's called a double one thing i can say about this semi-final is that benjamin stefan likes rio he faced his opponent in front of him park sangyong here at the test event back in april and came out a 15 10 winner well at six foot two benjamin stefan has the reach advantage that's 189 meters park sangyong five foot ten one seven seven metric park well he's been lightning fast tonight so the swiss stefan on the left of your screen part from korea on the right and it is stefan pushing park back to the back of the piece and using his reach to come in stephanie's a tall uh fencer with an upright on guard position slight body weight leaning over the front foot he's very happy to play the aggressor and launches attacks uh left right he uh he can get picked off on doubles if he extends his attack from too far out but once he gets into the lead he's happy to play for doubles park sangyong uh one of the shorter men in the field has a fairly classic on guard position but uh bounces backwards and forwards uh hopping around as you can see but then makes some very deliberate steps forwards to play with the distance believe it or not he's won a couple of grand prix's on the doha grand prix in january 2014 and the burn grand prix in may 2014 a couple of years ago so despite only being 20 he's already got some pretty special medals park going ahead to one although these are early days in epee having the lead is so important and that's why it tends to be a cagey affair stephans even things up and park thought that he hit there so just having his weapon checked so if his weapon wasn't working then that hit would have been annulled but it was functioning properly to a piece now if you look at the clock in the middle of your screen that is ticking down we have three three minute sections and they will be divided by a minute break each part symbol light on so three two now yeah he likes those uh sharp attacks and watch from the standing start he just explodes directly to target stephan no chance of landing that double he was also a little bit stationary need to keep moving the whole time in the fencing footwork is so important very close to the leg there from the korean i'm part ducking underneath stephan's attack i'm able to pick him off from below so the attack goes over and park angling his blade up into the chest of stephan just changing the angle slightly moving from one side of the piece to the you see the korean's hand quite low he likes to look for octave and then launch the stunningly fast attacks and as we saw just a hit or two ago has this very effective ducking counter-attack to go with it at the moment he's uh driving this one forward stephan looking a little bit flat-footed oh that time park went for the leg and it was stephan that was able to pick off the korean so he's got one back while park just missing there very very close park playing with the distance he's in control of it at the moment he's extending so four six thirty seconds left on the clock before the break target is 15. distance is massive neither of these fencers have got any chance of hitting each other from this distance we've got to be careful that the referee doesn't call non-combativity and they don't get a break if they're not fencing each other then the referee has the option to stop and then just roll through into the next period they don't want that to happen so then touch their weapons and they've gone to the break six four but i would think anyone looking at this fight would think that the korean probably in the driving seat yeah absolutely certainly is and i'm sure stephen was delighted to get to the break i think the coach was actually saying to him during that fight in the last 40 odd seconds please back away i need to have a chat with you we need to change tactics slightly don't go toe to toe with this super fast korean he's massively pumped up and at 20 years old has a big opportunity to get into the gold medal match at the olympic so he's got two uh grand prix wins to his name already and stefan has had a brilliant season this season but he's only managed world cup and grand prix silver medals in his career one of those silvers was at the grand prix here in rio de janeiro which acted as the test event and in fact he faced uh the his adversary uh in that final bogdan mccushin in the round of 16 here and knocked him out 15 14 in a tight one so he likes rio stefan well will he like it in seven or eight minutes time the loser of course will have to fight off the bronze park gets another one so can see he's closing over the top of the arm there for the korean this is the second of the semi-finals geza inray already through to the gold medal match so the winner will meet 41 year old hungarian geza inray first competed in olympic games 20 years ago and park's getting another one it looks like well it's too early to say for sure this could be a matchup of youth versus experience in the final it's not right off stefan yet no but park is showing a great deal of variety here and he's not giving stefan any time to rest at all stefan comes out on the attack park is there ready for a counter if stefan does nothing and bounces around park launches a flash attack and so far he's been very successful double is no good already at this stage to benjamin stefan they're trailing by four points park would be quite happy to give away a couple of gut doubles just to push his score towards the magic 15 that's better from stefan swiss looking for a way back in again stefan deceived went in and park just ducked underneath sitting like that before ducking under the attack and you can almost see stefan's shoulders slump parks and double figures well park did this to heintze in the last round absolutely came out on top form almost looks now like he's having a tiny little breather keeping a long distance but staying disciplined with the hand breather over looks like he's ready to go again that's a double what helped stefan stefan's got to attack so it was a stefan's attack there he didn't do anything to avoid getting hit yeah he's got to get uh the koreans blade out of the way first because at the moment koreans just deceiving any attempt at a beat from the swiss fencer and a swiss fencer keeping a long distance when going backwards which is ideal for a shorter fencer and then when he presses he just scares stefan away i think the moment for stefan to attack is when park changes direction coming forwards going from going backwards to coming forwards needs to pick that moment on the change of direction and then beat an attack there we go oh yes absolutely spot on that's exactly what he needed to do to be fair he looked like he's just a tiny bit too far away that time you see he misses the first one goes to a big beat but in close quarters is able to land a continuation so he misses there but that's the hit onto the leg they're gonna have a look at this just to see whether stefan has gone past so the rules of crossing on the piece if the attacking fencer hits after he's gone past the person who's passing that's not allowed the person who's being passed is allowed one hit and he hadn't passed so the point stands now we'll park up the ante and come at stefan 30 seconds to go now and there's a double apart celebrating these doubles now because three points is what stefan needs three unanswered points well it's very clever stuff and you know what it's a tiny bit risky if you get it wrong it's uh you're gonna look a bit daft but i think uh what park is doing here is very clever he's changing the distance on another fast attack to show the variety again but he's changing the distance very carefully very cautiously and he's trying to step in and lure stefan into attacking him so that he can pick off the double and so he in some respects he's definitely playing for doubles then he throws in a super fast attack like that and stephan is running out of space rather than time because park is just two hits away make that one hit away from going into the gold medal match another lightning fast flesh attack turning his body into an arrow and flying at his opponent so one hit needed now for the korean 20 years old in his first olympic games will he just go for that now 17 seconds left to go or will we go to a minute break i think he'll launch one more here we go here he goes here he goes gotta go now well he launched it so we go into a minute break we've got uh well you never know you're not gonna hit in 0.67 seconds yeah okay so we go to the minute break and uh any way back for stephan um in a word he doesn't think so he really doesn't but he's even talking to his coach this has dropped his mask on to the piste and he's now just wandering around coach talking to him in italian does actually have four languages german and french the main ones in the southern parts of chiquito they speak italian and there's also the match as well but stephan i fear will have to face uh gautier grumier for a fight off for the bronze medal and if anyone could pick to go up to against the bronze medal match it is the world number one anyone who could avoid it that is and uh yeah it's all over bar the shouting they say it's not over until the fat lady sings i think it's pretty much over at least the fat lady's warming up park needs one more that can be a double stephan needs to attack onus is on the swiss fencer park may not wait that long he may just launch and he has stephan came in park hit him with a parry riposte and he's through to the final and that is going to be an incredible matchup because park sang young from korea but just 20 years old has come to this tournament the olympic games fenced just out of this world brilliant fencing two big scalps in a row heinzer and stephan and park sang young a 20 year old or go up against gezer emory in the final what a brilliant performance from him variety shown real intent as well really exciting to watch and i guess we are in store for a big big final here but first there will be a bronze medal match yes the bronze medal match this confirmation of this result and uh well it was all over really had the initiative from the word go the bronze medal bout that will take place uh local time at 5 15 that's in half an hour from now and that will be between this youngster park sang young 20 years old against the world champion 41 years old gezer emory from hungary final is at 17 45 first we will have the bronze medal match between benjamin stephan who we've just seen and the world number one gautier grumia