South Korean Wins Foil Title

Kim Young-ho won South Korea’s first-ever Olympic fencing gold medal Wednesday night, defeating Ralf Bissdorf of Germany, 15-14, in the men’s foil championship match at Sydney.

Dmitry Chevchenko of Russia beat France’s Jean-Noel Ferrari, 15-14, for the bronze. Kim just got past Chevchenko, 15-14, to advance to the title match.

Kim’s surprising run to the gold included a quarterfinal victory over Ukrainian Sergiy Golubytsky, who has won the last three world championships and most world titles since 1992.

Golubytsky has not been able to carry that success into the Olympics. He won the silver at the 1992 Barcelona Games, but finished sixth at Atlanta four years ago.

Kim finished third in the 1999 world championships.