Valerio Cuomo won his first FIE World Cup event in Sochi ©Getty Images

Italy's Valerio Cuomo has won a shock gold medal at the International Fencing Federation (FIE) Épée World Cup in Sochi after defeating France's Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Romain Cannone in the final.

The world number 73 Cuomo stunned Cannone 15-9 to claim the first World Cup win of his career.

Cuomo's route to the final saw him produce a stunning upset against Ukraine's Ihor Reizlin in the penultimate match.

Olympic bronze medallist Reizlin fell 15-13 to the number 73 seed.

Prior to his meeting with Reizlin, Cuomo beat Swiss veteran Max Heinzer 15-7.

Despite being 34 years old, Heinzer is still ranked 13th in the world and had an outside chance at a seventh World Cup win.

On the other side of the bracket, the tournament's fourth seed Cannone faced up against world number one and Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Gergely Siklósi of Hungary in one of the competition's best duels at the semi-final stage.

Against the odds, Cannone prevailed 15-13 in what was a rematch of the final in Tokyo last July.

Cannone downed Italy's Federico Vismara 15-14 to scrape through the quarter-finals against the world number 20, who won bronze at the Doha Grand Prix in January.

Pavel Sukhov of Russia stood in Cannone's way in the round-of-16 but eventually suffered a 15-9 loss.

With the conclusion of the individual tournament today, the team competition takes centre stage tomorrow in Sochi.

The winners are due to be crowned as the entire 32-team draw is scheduled to take place.