The duelist won a gold medal at the Olympic qualifying fencing world championship in Milan.

On this day, everything came together - Máté Koch, who won a gold medal in the individual competition of men's duelists on Wednesday, summed up his experience after the announcement of the results.

"I surprised myself a little that I didn't stress all day, I fought confidently, I let the actions go. Everything came together today, and in the final I was able to fight back for the European Championship defeat to Di Veroli, and on home ground. I'm very happy that I became world champion," he said, referring to the fact that he lost to the later gold medalist in the top 32 at the European Championships in Plovdiv.

He also mentioned that it is always difficult to fight against Hungarians, and on this day he had to fight with two teammates. He revealed that he grew up together with Tibor Andrásfi, whom he defeated among the 32, and they know each other well, so he had to pay close attention to that fact. As for Gergely Siklósi, whom he stopped in the quarter-finals, he has not yet defeated him in competition, "neither in the national team, nor in the national championship, nor in the World Cup".

"Now we were opponents, everyone wanted to win, he and I too, and in such cases you tend to get sensitive," he added.

Siklósi hugged and encouraged him after their match, which he liked very much.

"It was there that I worked hard with my master, Gábor Boczkó, to win a medal. I realized that I was able to defeat Gergő for the first time in my life. And the fact that I haven't won an individual medal at the World Championships or the European Championships, but now I will be".

He revealed that when he was down two strokes, he didn't think he could turn it around.

"He dominated a bit at the beginning, and at the end something happened, I got stuck in some fights that I didn't expect," he recalled of the quarter-finals.

He started the final with 0-3, he said that he started to get a little tired in his head, he had no idea then, but then he gave a couple of touches, which helped him regain his confidence.

"Maybe I wouldn't have been happy with the silver medal because the fencing went very well, I felt I could win this competition regardless of the fact that it's a world championship," he said.

He returned to Gergely Siklósi once more, saying that he was in very good shape and had built himself up nicely. “He deserved the medal too,” he said.

Máté Koch, ranked 12th in the world ranking, started as seeded on the main draw of 64, where he concentrated, and at the same time reached the semi-finals by defeating Swedish Linus Islas Flygare, Tibor Andrásfi, Luxemburgish Flavio Giannotte and Gergely Siklósi with entertaining fencing.

He continued to excel in the main Pashtun, he still "had a mountain", as a result he easily beat the Kazakh Ruslan Kurbanov.

He competed against this year's European champion, Davide Di Veroli, for the gold medal. In the other semi-final, the Italian easily saw off Frenchman Romain Cannone, the defending champion and Olympic gold medalist in Tokyo.

The national team captain Gábor Boczkó, who is also his coach, said that Máté Koch "is strong in that he loves fencing and lives for it, everything else outside of fencing is very strange to him".

"Now the energies went in the right direction, he was able to focus them on the shepherd. He had a good day. However, one of the most important things was to fight disciplinedly and strive to give the tus. He had his lapses now too, but we always tried to steer him back in the right direction," he added.

The World Cup is the most important competition of the one-year Olympic qualification period, and the result achieved here, as well as the score for it - with a multiplier of two and a half times as an individual compared to a World Cup - will definitely be included in the total. At the same time, each discipline primarily strives to obtain the team quota, because if it comes together, three individual fencers can automatically start in Paris.

MTI