DEAC's young fencer Sugár Battai, who had just returned home from the Junior European Championships in Tallinn, was not slowing down. This time, the recreation and lifestyle major of the University of Debrecen flew to Athens for an adult World Cup competition.
On Friday, she successfully qualified in women's sabre singles (3/3) and then had to fight her teammate Luca Szűcs for the round of 64. Their umpteenth clash brought success to the DEAC fencer (15:11).
Sugár Battai also won the next bout: she defeated the Spaniard Araceli Navarro by 15:13. Chiara Mormile was her next opponent for the round of 16. There was a big battle with the Italian in order to advance and, in the end, our fencer was victorious with only one stroke. The next stage was easier than this, in which László Dávid's student won with a confident performance, 15:9, against Caroline Queroli of France, who is a member of a world and European champion team, thus finding herself among the top eight. Here, even the Japanese Misaki Emura could not stop our contestant (15:13), who was already a medal winner at that stage. The only question was what color of a medal she would return home with.
She had to fight the bronze medalist of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Manon Apithy-Brunet, for qualifying to the final. The DEAC competitor fought fiercely this time as well, leading all the way and defeating her French rival 15:9!
Olga Kharlan was her opponent in the final. The 32-year-old Ukrainian world-class fencer has a really impressive track record: she is a six-time world and eight-time European champion, as well as a team Olympic gold medalist. So the task was quite formidable, as results and experience were definitely in favor of Kharlan.
Sugi got off to a great start, taking the first two points, but the Ukrainian fencer first equalized and then even got ahead. This did not confuse our athlete, who then regained the lead with concentrated fencing. The two excellent fencers went head to head, and the bout became very tight. In the end, Sugár was leading 14:11, yet her opponent could still equalize. Eventually, Sugár Battai took the last chance to score, and she became the world cup winner (15-14)!
NyD - DEAC
