Singapore women’s epee team clinch joint bronze at Asian Fencing Championships
SINGAPORE – Singapore clinched a joint bronze in the women’s epee team event at the Asian Fencing Championships on June 24, after a 45-41 defeat by China in the semi-finals. At the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, the team, comprising Kiria Tikanah Abdul Rahman, Elle Koh, Esther Tan and Denise Seah, b
By Kimberly Kwek
SINGAPORE – Singapore clinched a joint bronze in the women’s epee team event at the Asian Fencing Championships on June 24, after a 45-41 defeat by China in the semi-finals.
At the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, the team, comprising Kiria Tikanah Abdul Rahman, Elle Koh, Esther Tan and Denise Seah, beat the Philippines 45-34 in the table-of-16 before overcoming third seeds Hong Kong 45-38 in the last eight.
The sixth-seeded Singaporeans claimed the joint bronze with Kazakhstan, who lost 45-29 in the other semi-final to South Korea.
The South Koreans went on to edge out China 44-43 for the title.
Singapore’s best finish at the Asian meet is a silver by Juliet Heng in the women’s sabre at the 2025 edition.
The nation’s fencers have also finished on the podium in previous years, with Amita Berthier and Kiria bagging individual joint bronze medals in the women’s foil and epee in 2023 and 2025 respectively.
Singapore were also women’s foil team bronze medallists in 2010, 2022, 2023 and 2025.
This is an encouraging result for Singapore with the Sept 19 to Oct 4 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games just round the corner.
The last time Singapore won an Asiad medal was in 2018, when Maxine Wong, Tatiana Wong, Melanie Huang and Berthier captured the women’s team foil bronze.
Before that, the only other time that the country stood on the podium at the continental meet was when Lim Wei Wen snagged the men’s individual epee bronze at the 2014 Incheon Games.