Wheelchair fencer Dimitri Coutya completes his title collection after a glorious golden day in Paris

04 September 2024

Dimitri Coutya secured the only wheelchair fencing title he was still missing from his outstanding resume when he won gold in the B category of the foil at the Paralympics in Paris on Wednesday.

The multiple world and European champion, who won a silver and three bronze medals in Tokyo three years ago, was determined to end his wait for the biggest prize of all and delivered three outstanding performances to fulfill his ambition.

Bath-based Coutya received a bye into the quarterfinals as the top seed, where he quickly dispatched Thailand’s Visit Kingmanaw 15-5 to set up a rematch against Ukraine’s Dymtro Serozhenko, who ended Coutya’s bid for a bronze medal in sabre on Tuesday.

There was no repeat this time as Coutya took an easy 8-3 lead at halftime and then secured their place in the final with a convincing 15-4 win.

Defending champion Yanke Feng of China was then beaten 15-7 in just over 10 minutes to give Coutya, who trains at the National Wheelchair Fencing Training Centre at the University of Bath, his first Paralympic gold medal.

In the Category A foil event, Oliver Lam-Watson made his Paralympic debut in an individual event. He faced a tough draw and lost 15-2 to defending champion Gang Sun of China in the round of 16, but fenced impressively in the repechage, defeating Byron Branch of the USA 15-7 and Michal Nalewajek of Poland 15-10.

He then had an epic battle against Richard Osvath, a foil medalist of the last three Games and top seed in Paris, which the Hungarian finally won 15-14.

Lam-Watson and Coutya will compete on Thursday alongside Category A sabre silver medallist Piers Gilliver in the men’s team foil event, an event in which they won silver at the Tokyo Games.

Photo credit: imagecomms