Zsolt, may I say that you are one of the best known and most successful sabre fencers Hungary has ever had? You have taken part in three Olympic Games, winning silver in the individual competition in Athens in 2004, and many more. Today you have your own fencing school, work for the University of Physical Education, for the Hungarian Fencing Federation, for the FIE and present major events such as the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on Hungarian sports television. It’s fair to say that you’ve built a great career after your elite sports career. How big was the effort?

Zsolt: I would not say that I am the best known hungarian sabre fencer, however the bar is high here in Hungary… I have achieved a couple of awards, but here are a lot more powerful fencers still ongoing… The 3 times olympic champion, Aron Szilagyi is still active, planning to return after Paris olympics, Andras Szatmari, individual world champion is aiming Los Angeles from now, both the mens’ and womens’ sabre teams are defending champions at the World Championships. Here we are bound of traditions, and of course, I was a part of this, and now, after finished my sports career, I try my best to give back to our sport what I got from it, when I was young. This is my life, and I am lucky that I can work in the field, what I really love.

Back to the beginnings: When, where and why did you start sabre fencing?

I started fencing in my age of 9, I followed my elder brother. He was talented, and it was no question that I will follow him. Our luck was that we met one of the best coach, mentor, trainer, pedagogue, György Gerevich in Vasas Fencing Club Budapest. He was the elder son of the most successful hungarian athlete in th olympic history, the 7th times sabre olympic champion, Aladar Gerevich. He became coach in a very youth age, but he was the one who left the best heritage to hungarian sabre fencing, before his unfortune death in 2008. He taught fencing and raised a large number of champions, i.g. Aron Szilagyi, Andras Szatmari, Nicolas Iliasz, myself, and a lot more fencers, whom became at least hungarian national champions

In certain countries, such as Holland, the first weapon that children get their hands on is the sabre. What is it like in Hungary?

Technically it would have been better (and it was like that in Hungary until the 80’s), if children could start fencing with foil. That is the weapon of fine motoric skills. The small target, the light weapon and the precisement of the thrusts can give a perfect basic to a fencer, then after they can specialise according to their skills. Nowadays, we do not have enough time to master these skills, due to the youth competition system and the demand for results, which is not a good process, if we want to raise the whole talent of a young athlete. But it is, what it is, to answer the question, in Hungary, the first weapon, what the children can get is depending on the coach, who is there, in the given club. The weapon categories have been divided pretty much in the last couple of decades, now we can speak about 3 different sport, especially because their physical demand. The coaches are specialised in their weapon, and do not want to teach any other.

How do you rate the popularity of fencing in general in Hungary? And how popular is the sabre compared to the epee or foil?

Fencing is a layer sport in every country, because of its complexity. Very difficult to learn and, most importantly, very difficult to understand for average people. We can not compete with ball games in popularity and numbers. Here, in Hungary, we have traditional sports, which not that popular in other countries. This is because their past results. The Hungarian sabre was unbeatable from 1908 till 1964 at the olympics, that is coming to people’s mind: if sabre, then it is 2 golds at the olympics… But since then the sport has changed a lot, we lost that dominancy, but still there is some respect towards fencing in Hungary. (of course, it is just because we still have nice results). Inside fencing, we can say that, epée is the most popular (as everywhere on the world), 50% of fencers are doing this discipline, the other 25–25% is divided between foil and sabre.

As you may know, the sabre is not very common in Switzerland. Especially not in German-speaking Switzerland. You lived in Zurich for a while and know the mentality. Is it because of the temperament of the German-speaking Swiss, or what other reasons do you see?

It is always depend on the traditions. We have to go back in time to understand this. Fencing is a military sport, it was the primary tool of fight until the invention of powder but they still tought fencing on military academies until the 2nd World War…

The 3 disciplines of modern fencing are coming from different cultures. The epée and its practice weapon, the foil are coming from the medieval age western countries, from the territory of the current France, Germany, Spain and Italy. The sabre was the weapon of the eastern countries’ cavalry (mongols, turks, hungarians). They were using their curved, one edged blades from the back of the horse, and that is why a cut was much effective, than a thrust. In contrast, the epée was a deadly weapon of an armoured knight. And Switzerland, because its geografical position, is a part of the western culture, there was no demand for sabre.

Of course, when sport fencing was formed, around the turn of the 19th–20th Century, western countries were adopted sabre as well, but genetic predisposition can not be erased from the modern sport either.

“But talented children are everywhere, so I think, to make sabre more popular in Switzerland, it only depends on some common will, coming from the sport-leadership, open thinking and hiring good coaches whom are able to build something from zero, starting the club work with little children.”

Back to your career. How did you train back then to get to the top of the world? What did it take from you personally?

Fencing is an individual sport. In youth ages you need to learn technics and tactics, then how to compete and finally, in senior age, how to increase your performance. On the way, of course, you need partners (fencing alone is not possible:)). I learned that from my coach, the hard work always pays off, and fencing is a sport, what teaches you many things, what you can use in your private life too… You learn to be disciplined, determined, punctious, precise, to deal with stress, to solve problems individually, to manage your time, to develop cognitive skills, and a lot more, what is useful, even if you could not become world champion. And everything is possible without 6-8 hours of daily training, not like in cyclic sports, therefore you still have time to educate yourself in other fields…