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Bhavani Devi successfully defended her gold medal at the 37th National Games held in Goa. She defeated Kerala's S Soumiya 15-5 in the women's sabre individual event in Panaji, Goa on Thursday.
Bhavani Devi is already an established Indian fencer who holds the tag as being the first Indian fencer to qualify for the Olympics when she participated in the 2020 Summer Olympics. In 2023, she also became the first Indian fencer to win a medal in the Asian Fencing Championships when she clinched bronze.
In a final that was expected or at least hoped by many to go down to the wire, Bhavani Devi displayed excellence and power as she closed the match in just over 3 minutes. Her opponent S Soumiya from Kerala began strong and won two points at the start by touching Bhavani's body with her sword. She celebrated each point with a fist pump, but her joys were short-lived.
Bhavani slowly increased her intensity and with each point forced Soumiya into a defensive mode as she dominated the rest of the game. She started accumulating points in her favor and soon ran out as the victor.
With the win, Bhavani Devi successfully defended her gold medal and provided Tamil Nadu with their first gold medal of the event. In the 2022 National Games held in Gujarat, she became one of two wrestlers from Tamil Nadu to clinch gold in fencing at the Mahatma Mandir Hall in Gandhinagar.
Bhavani entered the 2023 event as one of the favourites and successfully proved her mantle in the city of tranquil.
Maharashtra leads the medal tally in the 37th National Games with 13 medals (3 gold, 6 silver, 4 bronze) and are followed by Services (3 gold, 2 silver) and Karnataka (3 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze) with 5 medals a piece. Services had topped the medal tally in the 2022 event.
List of Fencing Medal winners at the 37th National Games Goa
In addition to Bhavani Devi's gold medal, several other athletes impressed in various fencing events. Men's EPEE Fencing, Men's Sabre Fencing, Women's Sabre Team Fencing are yet to take place. Among the finished events, athletes from Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Services won gold medals.
The Men's Foil Fencing finished in a thrilling fashion with Services' Arjun Arjun winning gold, Kathiresan Bibish, also from Services, taking home silver. Furthermore, Konsam Denny Singh from Manipur and Dev Dev from Haryana won a combined bronze medal.
In the Women's Sabre Fencing Individual results, Bhavani Devi took gold, S Soumiya won silver and Himachal Pradesh's Ballouria Shiksha and Punjab's Kaur Jagmeet won a combined bronze medal.
In the Women's EPEE Fencing Individual event, Haryana's Khatri Taniksha won gold,. Meanwhile, Himachal Pradesh's Dutta Jyotika won silver and Manipur's Devi Saikhom Nelcyrose and Punjab's Arora ENA won a combined bronze medal.
Overall, Manipur, Himachal Pradesh, Services, Punjab and Haryana have won two medals each while Tamil Nadu and Kerala have won one each.
