The men's sabre was one of eight

fencing Fencing is a combat sport that features sword fighting. It consists of three primary disciplines: Foil (fencing), foil, épée, and Sabre (fencing), sabre (also spelled ''saber''), each with its own blade and set of rules. Most competitive fe ...

events on the

fencing at the 1980 Summer Olympics At the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, eight events in fencing were contested. Men competed in both individual and team events for each of the three weapon types (épée, foil and sabre), but women competed only in foil events. They were held be ...

programme. It was the nineteenth appearance of the event. The competition was held from 24 to 25 July 1980. 30 fencers from 12 nations competed. Nations had been limited to three fencers each since 1928. The event was won by defending champion Viktor Krovopuskov of the Soviet Union, the nation's third consecutive victory in the event (a streak that would be broken by the Soviet-led boycott four years later). Krovopuskov was the third man to successfully defend a sabre title and the 10th man to win two medals of any color in the event. His teammate

Mikhail Burtsev Mikhail Ivanovich Burtsev (; 21 June 1956 – 16 October 2015) was a Soviet sabre fencer. He won two gold medals and two silvers at three different Olympic Games. Career Burtsev began his fencing career in 1965; he originally fenced for B ...

took silver.

Imre Gedővári Imre Gedővári (1 July 1951 – 22 May 2014) was a Hungarian fencer and Olympic gold medalist. He won his first World Championship medal, a silver, in 1975 and made his Olympic debut in 1976. He won his first World Championship gold m ...

's bronze medal returned Hungary to the podium after a one-Games absence broke an eleven-Games streak.

Background

This was the 19th appearance of the event, which is the only fencing event to have been held at every Summer Olympics. Five of the six finalists from 1976 returned: gold medalist Viktor Krovopuskov of the Soviet Union, silver medalist (and 1972 bronze medalist) Vladimir Nazlymov of the Soviet Union, fourth-place finisher Ioan Pop of Romania, fifth-place finisher

Mario Aldo Montano Mario Aldo Montano (born 1 May 1948) is an Italian fencer. He won a gold and two silver medals in the team sabre at three Olympic Games. He also competed at the Mediterranean Games in the individual sabre event where he won silver medals in 197 ...

of Italy, and sixth-place finisher Michele Maffei of Italy. Bronze medalist (and 1972 gold medalist)

Viktor Sidyak Viktor Aleksandrovich Sidyak (; born 24 November 1943) is a Russian former left-handed sabre (fencing), sabre fencer, a pupil of Mark Rakita and David Tyshler. He was known for his aggressive style and the "one-and-a-half tempo attack". Biograp ...

's place on the Soviet team had been filled by

. The three world championships since the last Games had been won by Hungarian

Pál Gerevich Pál Gerevich (born 10 August 1948) is a Hungarian fencer, who won two Olympic bronze medals in the team sabre competitions. Pál Gerevich won the world championships in sabre fencing in 1977 and is currently coaching the Viennese fencing club ...

(1977) and Soviets Krovopuskov (1978) and Nazlymov (1979), the latter of whom had also won in 1975. The American-led boycott had little effect on the top of the favorites list, with the Soviet Union dominating, other Eastern Bloc countries such as Hungary, Poland, Romania being perpetually strong (with Bulgarian twins

Vasil Etropolski Vasil Etropolski (born 18 March 1959) is a Bulgarian fencer and fencing coach. He competed in the individual and team sabre events at the 1980 and 1988 Summer Olympics. He also won the 1983 sabre world championship. He is the twin brother of K ...

and

Khristo Etropolski Khristo Etropolski (, born 18 March 1959) is a Bulgarian fencer. He competed in the individual and team sabre events at the 1980 and 1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and offici ...

making a case to add that nation), and the strongest Western nation in the event (Italy) participating under the Olympic flag in partial support for the boycott. Indeed, the only nation that had ever won a men's sabre medal to boycott the 1980 Games was the United States—which had taken silver in St. Louis 1904. Kuwait and East Germany each made their debut in the men's sabre. Italy made its 17th appearance in the event, most of any nation, having missed the inaugural 1896 event and the 1904 Olympics.

Competition format

The 1980 tournament continued to use a mix of pool and knockout rounds. The competition included two pool rounds, followed by a double-elimination knockout round, finishing with a final pool round. In each pool round, the fencers competed in a round-robin. Bouts in the round-robin pools were to 5 touches; bouts in the double-elimination round were to 10 touches. Repechages were not used in the first two rounds, but were used to determine medalists if necessary in the final.

Schedule

All times are

Moscow Time Moscow Time (MSK; ) is the time zone for the city of Moscow, Russia, and most of western Russia, including Saint Petersburg. It is the second-westernmost of the eleven time zones of Russia, after the non-continguous Kaliningrad enclave. It h ...

(

UTC+3 UTC+03:00 is an identifier for a UTC offset, time offset from UTC of +03:00. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours ahead of the Coordinated Universal Time, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Following the ISO 8601 standard, ...

)

Results

Round 1

Round 1 Pool A

Round 1 Pool B

Round 1 Pool C

Round 1 Pool D

Round 1 Pool E

Round 1 Pool F

Round 2

Round 2 Pool A

Round 2 Pool B

Round 2 Pool C

Round 2 Pool D

Double elimination rounds

Winners brackets

=Winners group 1

=Winners group 2

=Winners group 3

=Winners group 4

Losers brackets

=Losers group 1

=Losers group 2

Final round

; Barrage

Final classification

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fencing at the 1980 Summer Olympics - Men's sabre Sabre men Men's events at the 1980 Summer Olympics