Hungarian shocks world number one to win maiden World Fencing Championships title

40-year-old Hungarian Geza Imre sealed his maiden World Fencing Championships gold medal with victory in the men's individual epee ©Getty Images

Hungary’s Geza Imre shocked world number one Gauthier Grumier of France to secure his maiden individual International Fencing Federation (FIE) World Championships epee title with a thrilling 15-14 victory in Moscow.

Imre, winner of nine medals in the team event, including three gold, claimed victory by the narrowest of margins to ensure he became the oldest individual epee winner in World Championships history.

The previous holder of that particular mantle was Germany’s Volker Fischer, who topped the podium at the 1987 event in Lausanne, Switzerland aged 36.

The 40-year-old Hungarian, an Olympic silver medallist at Athens 2004, reached the final by virtue of a 15-8 triumph over Korea’s Seung Hwa, while Grumier overcame Patrick Jorgensen of Denmark 15-11 in his semi-final contest.

Grumier, widely-tipped to take home the gold, could not quite clear the last hurdle as Imre celebrated an historic victory.

Seung and Jorgensen rounded off the podium by securing a bronze medal apiece.

Italian Rossella Fiamingo became only the third woman to win multiple individual epee titles with a 15-5 triumph over Emma Samuelsson in the final ©Getty Images

In the women’s individual epee event, Italy’s Rossella Fiamingo successfully defended her 2014 crown with a comfortable 15-5 success in the final against Sweden’s Emma Samuelsson.

The result saw Fiamingo become the first woman to clinch successive World Championships golds in the epee discipline since France’s Laura Flessel-Colovic managed the feat in 1998 and 1999.

The 24-year-old from Catania joins an exclusive list of women to have won multiple titles, with Hungary’s Mariann Horvath alongside Flessel-Colovic the only other two to have topped the podium on more than one occasion in the event.

Fiamingo was in dominant form throughout the competition and recorded a 15-10 victory over Sarra Besbes of Tunisia in the last four, with Swede Samuelsson ousting China’s Xu Anqi to reach the final.

The Tunisian and Chinese fencers took home bronze.

Besbes’ medal was just the second her country have ever won at the World Fencing Championships, following on from compatriot Ines Boubakri’s third-place finish in last year’s individual foil event.

Tomorrow’s action at the Olympic Stadium in the Russian capital is due to include team sabre qualification and individual foil finals.