The Korea Fencing Federation (title sponsor SK Telecom) said it will hold the 2025 Busan SK Telecom women's foil International World Cup fencing championships at the Busan Spo1n Park Geumjeong Indoor Gymnasium from the 5th to the 7th.
Following the 2023 Busan men's and women's foil international grand prix and last year's Busan SK Telecom women's foil international world cup, it will be held consecutively in Busan again this year. This tournament will offer points for seeding for the 2026 World Fencing Championships and the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, and a total of 193 athletes from 30 countries will participate, including about 30 domestic athletes and about 160 foreign athletes.
On the 5th, individual preliminary rounds and preliminary tournaments will be held; on the 6th, the individual event main draw from the round of 64 through the final; and on the 7th, the team event will be held. In particular, this year's participation scale increased by 20 individual competitors and three more teams in the team event compared with last year, expanding the scale of the tournament and further elevating its stature.
Domestically, more than 30 athletes, including national team members Shim So-eun, Park Ji-hee (both Seoul Metropolitan Government), Mo Byeol-i (Jung-gu Office, Incheon), and Kim Ho-Youn (Gangwon Provincial Government), will compete, and internationally top-ranked athletes such as world No. 1 Lee Keeper (U.S.), No. 2 Martina Favaretto (Italy), No. 3 Eleanor Harvey (Canada), and last year's champion Elena Tanggerlini (Italy) will participate in large numbers.
The federation said, "The foil event became a turning point for the rise of Korean fencing starting with Kim Young-ho's gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Just as the 'Seoul SK Telecom men's and women's sabre international grand prix,' held annually since 2015, provided an important foundation for the stable growth and international competitiveness of the sabre teams, this tournament is also a meaningful stepping stone for strengthening the competitiveness of our women's foil team and expanding the player base."
It added, "Continuously hosting major international competitions domestically is very important because it creates an environment in which athletes can compete with world-class players and gain international competition experience without bearing large expense burdens," and emphasized, "This will be a core platform for early discovery of promising talent and building the next-generation growth foundation."
Meanwhile, Busan has recently established itself as a new global center of fencing by steadily attracting joint training inviting athletes from developing countries and junior men's and women's sabre international world cup competitions. Through this, the international competition operation capabilities of the Busan Metropolitan City Sports Council and the Busan Metropolitan City Fencing Federation have been further strengthened, and it is expected that a virtuous cycle will be established in which other regions benchmark Busan's case to improve their operational competitiveness. This tournament is expected to inject new vitality not only into the expansion of fencing's domestic base but also into the increase of youth and female athletes and the activation of the sport.
The tournament will be held at the Busan Spo1n Park Geumjeong Indoor Gymnasium from Dec. 5 to 7, and from the opening ceremony on Dec. 6 through the individual semifinals, finals and awards ceremony, it will be broadcast live from 4:30 p.m. on KBS N SPORTS (YouTube, TV).
[Photo] Provided by the federation.
[OSEN]