Women's Foil Fencing Suffers 28-29 'Heartbreaking Comeback Loss' to Japan in Final; Second Straight Silver [Nagoya AG]

[Financial News] South Korea's women's foil team won silver after suffering a heartbreaking comeback loss to home team Japan in the team final at the 2026 Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya.
The women's foil team, comprising Park Ji-hee and Sim So-eun, both of Seoul Metropolitan Government, Mo Byeol-i of Jung-gu Office, Incheon Metropolitan City, and Lee Se-ju of Chungcheongbuk-do Provincial Government, lost 28-29 to Japan after a close contest in the team final at Aichi Sky Expo in Tokoname City, Aichi Prefecture, on the 26th.
South Korea, seeded No. 2 in the tournament, received a bye into the round of 16. It advanced to the final after defeating Macau 45-32 in the quarterfinals and defending champion China 43-35 in the semifinals, but could not clear the final hurdle. With two consecutive team-event silver medals following the 2023 edition of the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, South Korea's women's foil team will have to wait for another opportunity to reclaim the title, 12 years after Asian Games Incheon 2014 and its five-title run from 1998 to 2014.

Against Japan, ranked No. 3 in the world and featuring three fencers in the top 10 of the individual world rankings, South Korea, ranked No. 8, held a narrow lead deep into the match and came close to pulling off an underdog upset.
The contest went back and forth through the first four rounds before turning in South Korea's favor in the fifth. Park Ji-hee took to the piste with South Korea trailing 11-13 and scored four straight points to take a 16-14 lead. In the sixth round, Sim So-eun widened the gap to 19-14 by scoring three points without conceding a single point to Yuka Ueno, the individual champion at these Games.
Mo Byeol-i held the lead at 22-19 in the seventh round despite the misfortune of getting a foreign object in her eye during the match. In the eighth round, Sim So-eun repeatedly succeeded with bold parry-and-thrust moves to extend the lead to 26-22, putting South Korea within touching distance of the title.
But Ueno's late surge was fierce in the decisive ninth round. Park Ji-hee, South Korea's anchor fencer, scored first to make it 27-22, but then conceded seven straight points. Japan tied the match at 27-27 with 51 seconds remaining and went on to take a 29-27 lead. Under pressure, Park recovered one point with 16 seconds left, but there was not enough time to complete the comeback.

Park Ji-hee wept openly in the mixed zone after the match, devastated by the loss of a gold medal that had seemed within reach. She won silver in both the individual and team events, becoming a two-time silver medalist at the Games, but felt especially sorry toward her teammates.
Park Ji-hee said, "It has only been a year since I started fencing as the last fencer in the team event, and my teammates believed in me a lot. We even lost to Japan by a two-to-one margin at a World Cup, but we made it this far because my younger teammates all performed so well today. That's why this is so disappointing." She added, "I want to prepare well over the next two years, earn a spot at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and show everyone a better performance."
Sim So-eun, the youngest member of the team, remained composed. She said, "The result is disappointing, but I think we showed our best performance based on how we prepared," adding, "If we had performed better in the middle, I don't think this would have happened. Still, I have no regrets because we gave it our all."  

[email protected] Park Ji-hyun Reporter