Fencing at the 1988 Seoul Summer Games:

West Germany had shown a considerable depth of talent since the 1984 Olympics and had taken 5 of the 9 available medals at the intervening World Championships – each by a different fencer. It was expected that the West Germans would all be strong medal contenders but the extent of their domination came as a shock. There was little sign of German superiority in the second pool stages as all three had difficulty qualifying but once in the knockout stages they suddenly found their best form. [Anja Fichtel]'s victory over [Zsuzsa Jánosi] of Hungary in the semi-final ensured that the West Germans would take home both gold and silver and with Jánosi losing to [Zita-Eva Funkenhauser] in the bronze medal match the medal sweep was complete. This just left the matter of which German would be crowned Olympic champion. That honour fell to Fichtel who defeated [Sabine Bau] to add Olympic gold to her 1986 World title.

Back in 29th place in the classification was 52 year old [Kerstin Palm] of Sweden making her 7th successive Olympic appearance. Although since beaten, it was a record for any female Olympian at the time.