Favourites
- Misaki Emura (JPN) won the women’s individual sabre world
title in 2022 and 2023. She can become the first woman to win this event at
three successive world championships. Emura won the women’s individual sabre at
the Asian championships in Bali in June this year. Emura won three World Cup or
Grand Prix events this season.
- Sara Balzer (FRA) took Olympic silver after losing the final of this
event at the Paris 2024 Games against her compatriot Manon Apithy-Brunet (FRA).
Apithy-Brunet will not compete in Tbilisi. The only woman to have won the world
title for France in the women’s individual sabre was Anne Lise Touya (2001,
2005). France’s last medal in this event at the world championships was a
bronze medal for Cecilia Berder in 2017.
Sarah Noutcha (FRA) won the
European title in this event in Genoa in June. The last woman to win the
European and world title in this event in the same year was Olga Kharlan in
2019.
- Hayoung Jeon (KOR) can win the first women’s individual sabre
world title for Korea. The NF claimed two bronze medals in this event: Hye-Lim
Kim in 2006 and Ji-Yeon Kim in 2013. Jeon won three World Cup or Grand Prix
events this season.
- Yoana Ilieva (BUL) can become the first woman to win a world title
in fencing for Bulgaria.
- Despina Georgiadou (GRE, G0-S1-B1) or Theodora
Gkountoura (GRE, G0-S0-B2) could win the first world title in any fencing
event for Greece. They claimed silver (Georgiadou) and bronze (Gkountoura) in
Milan in 2023. Georgiadou won the most recent international (senior) women’s
individual sabre event in Tbilisi, when she won the satellite tournament in
October 2023. She defeated Georgia’s Lika Jijeishvili in the final.
- Alina Komashchuk (UKR) claimed silver in this event at the European
championships in June.
- Luca Szucs (HUN) could win the first medal for Hungary in the women’s individual
sabre since 2015, when Anna Marton took bronze. Hungary won the women’s team sabre
event at the last two world championships, but it has never won the world title
in the women’s individual sabre.
Various
- Araceli Navarro (ESP, bronze in 2022) is the only Spanish woman to have won a world championships medal in a sabre event. Spain won one world title in women’s fencing, gold in the epee team event in 1994.
- Juliet Heng (SGP) took silver in the women’s sabre at the Asian championships in June. It was Singapore’s best result in the history of the Asian championships. The NF has never won a medal at the world championships.
- Samira Shokirova (UZB) won the junior World Cup event in Tbilisi in February 2025. Uzbekistan has never won a medal in fencing at the (senior) world championships.
- Qimiao Pan (CHN, 9 June 2009) recently celebrated her 16th birthday. Earlier this year she claimed a silver medal (cadet) and bronze medal (junior) medal at the junior and cadet world championships in Wuxi in April. China won the (senior) world title in the women’s sabre event in 2002, when Xue Tan triumphed. China’s last medal in this event was a bronze medal for Chen Shen in 2015.
- The last left-handed fencer to win the world title in this event was Mariel Zagunis (USA) in 2009 and 2010.
- Italy (G0-S3-B8) and Hungary (G0-S0-B2) have yet to win a world title in the women’s individual sabre. Of all 12 events at the world championships, this is the only event in which Italy and Hungary have never won a world title.
- Rebecca Ward (USA, 16y-237d) became the youngest medal winner in this event when she won gold in 2006. The oldest medal winner in this event is Sophia Velikaia (RUS, 34y-042d), who took silver in 2019.
- At the European championships in Tbilisi in 2017, Georgia won one gold medal: by Teodora Kakhiani in the women’s individual sabre.