Hungary’s Eva Hajmasi, Anna Nadasdy and Liliana Csarnai delivered the perfect end to their Budapest 2026 Para Fencing World Cup campaign on Sunday (22 March) joining forces to win gold in the new 30-point format for the women’s team sabre.

Hungary took on China in the final against the now familiar backdrop featuring the capital’s landmarks, emerging the victors in a thrilling tie against the Paralympic champions.

Hajmasi gave the hosts an early lead but the advantage was to switch the other way when Jingjing Zhou scored six points against Csarnai.

Nadasdy – the individual champion from Budapest 2026 in the women’s category A the day before – put in a strong shift against Jing Bian. Zhou and Csarnai then faced-off again with Zhou scoring seven points to give China a two-point lead.

Heading into the final two ties, Hajmasi was just able to reclaim the lead against Jing Bian to set-up Nadasdy for the final clash against Xufeng Zou. With a two-point difference, Nadasdy carried her form right through to end to take Hungary across the line.

As well as the teams on the piste, Hungary’s Zsuzsanna Krajnyak and China’s Qiyuan Peng collected their medals as the reserve fencers.

Hong Kong, China’s, Ka Man Lam, Nga Ting Tong and Yu Chui Yee were the bronze medallists.

Italy claimed their fifth gold medal of Budapest 2026 in the men’s team sabre.

Their final against Ukraine proved to be a vintage competition, adding to a lengthy rivalry between the two countries in the weapon.

The last they met, in Pisa, just a few weeks ago, Ukraine were the winners. And aside from Andrii Demchuk conceding an early deficit to Mattia Galvagno on Sunday afternoon, Ukraine were in control for most of the match.

Gianmarco Paolucci, Edoardo Giordan and Galvagno all failed to overtake Dmytro Serozhenko and Artem Manko.

All of the drama was left to the final bout featuring individual category A bronze medallist Giordan and overall winner, Demchuk.

Giordan set-about reclaiming the advantage in the match, bringing Italy closer and closer to Ukraine until the scores were level at 29-29.

Giordan then took all the glory, landing the final touch to carry his team to gold and add another fantastic chapter to the ongoing story between the two teams.

Andrea Jacquier of Italy and Volodymyr Lavrinkenko of Ukraine were the reserves.

China’s Chen Liqiang, Li Hao, Wang Jianqiang and Wang Jicheng managed to secure third place by overcoming South Korea.

As well as their silver in the sabre, Ukraine ended the competition on an even bigger high in the men’s team epee with victory against France.

Oleksii Zakusylov bought them right back into the match against French newcomer Mathias Panisset, scoring an incredible nine points, in the third bout. France still went into the fourth match with the lead but it was a slender margin of just one point with one half of the final still to come.

There was little to separate Oleg Naumenko and Thomas Tachidijan in the next bout and the gap remained at a single successful hit in favour of France.

Ukraine bought in reserve fencer Artem Manko for the penultimate match against Panniset. Manko started out strong but his French opponent refused to be left behind. Still one point separated the two countries heading into the final face-off, but this time Ukraine had the advantage.

It all came down to Zakusylov and Quentin Fernandez-Anssoux to decide the winner. It was Zakusylov who managed to successfully hold his nerve to land the five hits that took Ukraine to victory with a final score of 30-27.

“Winning competition is always a joyful feeling. We are trying to prove that we are the best and we will try to prove it again at the European Championships, at the World Championships and the Paralympic Games. So we are just trying to be the best and show to the youth that you can do whatever you want.

“Gold is gold. So you can say that you cannot judge the champions.”

After taking bronze in the sabre, China collected a second with Chen, Li, Wang and Wang stepping onto the podium once more.

The Budapest 2026 Para Fencing World Cup featured four full days of action across individual and team events in the men’s and women’s epee, sabre and foil category A and B.