Park Sang-young

Park was introduced to fencing in middle school. He nearly had to give up the sport as his family could not afford the expensive equipment but financial aid from a non-profit charity and his admission into Gyeongnam Physical Education High School [ko], a public school, allowed him to continue to fencing.^[2][3][4] During his first year in high school, he won first place in the individual épée category at the national high school championships.^[4]

Park was junior world champion in Moscow in 2012, becoming the first South Korean male junior fencer to win a medal in the épée event.^[5][4] He qualified for the senior national team in 2013 by winning the national championship, a rarity for a high school student as fencers generally competed at collegiate level before making the step up. Dubbed a "monster rookie", he made headlines by narrowly defeating veterans Kweon Young-jun and Jung Jin-sun.^[4][6]

Park joined the senior category in the 2013–14 season, during which he won the 2014 Doha Grand Prix and the 2014 Berne Grand Prix.^[7] As part of the South Korean team he won a gold medal at the 2014 Asian Fencing Championships in Suwon and at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon,^[8] as well as a silver medal at the 2014 World Fencing Championships.^[9] He finished the season world no.3.^[1]

The 2014–15 season proved more difficult for Park. He sustained a knee injury while fencing against Pavel Pitra of the Czech Republic in the table of 16 at the March Grand Prix in Budapest, Hungary.^[10] The injury prevented him from taking part in the 2015 Asian Championships and the World Championships. He returned to competition a year later, winning a bronze medal in the Vancouver world cup in February 2016.^[11]

Park is a graduate of Korea National Sport University.^[32][33] One of his contemporaries at university was pentathlete Jun Woong-tae, his close friend.^[34][35]