Coutya came back from 9-4 down and scored a series of points that went unanswered by Feng – the world champion from 2019 and 2023 – as he could barely halt Coutya’s charge.

“It didn’t really sink in until that last point hit,” Coutya said. “I’ve been chasing it for a long time. I won the foil worlds back in 2017 but I missed out on it the last couple of times the world championships have happened but it’s been unreal. It’s my first competition back from Paris so it’s mentally tough to be in such an intense environment with incredibly tough athletes but yeah it feels incredible to have come home with the gold today.”

It was the latest clash between Coutya and Feng in what has become one of Para fencing’s most compelling rivalries.

“It’s becoming quite a familiar sight to see us two together,” Coutya said. “He’s an incredible fencer and every time I come up against him I have to be 100 per cent focused, 100 per cent ready. It can kind of roll away from you, like it did in the first half of that match. I’m really happy I managed to pull it back and put in that performance.”

The 15-11 win is even more impressive considering that it is Coutya’s first competition back since winning gold at Paris 2024 following an operation earlier in the year.

“I thought: ‘Ok, this is a really challenging match, mentally, so can I make the most of it and can I deliver the best performance even if I’m not feeling 100 per cent so that kind of became the new goal. I didn’t really focus too much on winning or losing, I tried to just focus on what I needed to do and do it at the same time.”

In the battle for bronze, Ukraine’s Oleg Naumenko won his first World Championships medal. China’s Benjun Qin also improved on his sixth-place finish from 2023, taking the other bronze medal.

Ukraine’s Olena Fedota-Isaieva was the star in her own story on Saturday, winning her first world title in the women’s sabre category B.

In the final she faced Poland’s Karolina Strawinska, who was making her first appearance in a World Championships final and cemented herself as a fencer to watch.

The match oozed quality and there was little to separate the pair right until the end with the final score landing at 15-13.

The Chinese duo of Xiao Rong and Shumei Tan stood next to each other in third place.

In the women’s sabre category A, China’s Paralympic champion Haiyan Gu took the world title from Poland’s Paralympic silver medallist Kinga Drozdz in a replay of the final from Paris 2024.

The outcome was the same, with Drozdz settling for silver and having to hand over the baton from in 2023 to Gu.

Georgia’s Nina Tibilashvili took the bronze, her first podium finish at a World Championships. And 20-year-old Hungarian Anna Nadasdy’s star continues to rise as she also ended the day with her first medal at this level, following on from her under 23s world title in 2024.

The final gold of the day went to China’s Saichun Zhong in the men’s sabre category A, upgrading his silver medal from 2023 and 2019. Zhong saw off a late charge from his opponent Richard Osvath and it was not to be for the Hungarian.

China’s Yang Chang and 2023 world champion Emanuele Lambertini were the bronze medallists.

Japan’s Michinobu Fujita was the victor in the men’s foil category C with a dominant performance against defending champion Leonardo Rigo of Italy.

The gold medal match was a replay of the 2024 category C World Championships but this time Fujita got past his biggest rival to grab his first world title.

South Korea’s Chunhee Park collected his second medal of his home Worlds with bronze as did Latvia’s Dimitrijs Valainis.

The 2025 Para Fencing World Championships conclude on Sunday (6 September) with the men’s team foil and women’s team sabre.

Almost 240 athletes from 30 countries have gathered in Iksan to compete across men’s and women’s epee, foil and sabre category A, B and C.