McCune–Reischauer Ku Pon'gil Height 1.80 m Hangul 구본길 Highest world ranking 1 Weight 65 kg | Hanja 具本佶 Name Gu Bon-gil Coached by Lee Hyo-kun Revised Romanization Gu Bongil Role Olympic athlete | |
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Born 27 April 1989 (age 35) ( 1989-04-27 ) Similar People Oh Eun‑seok, Won Woo‑young, Kim Jung‑Hwan, Tiberiu Dolniceanu, Florin Zalomir | ||
Gu Bon-gil ([ku.bon.ɡil] or [ku] [pon.ɡil]; born 27 April 1989) is a South Korean fencer. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, he competed as part of the South Korean team in the Men's team sabre, where he won a gold medal. In the individual event he was defeated in the third round.
At the 2011 World Fencing Championships, he won the bronze medal, losing to Aldo Montano in the semifinal. At the 2014 World Fencing Championships he won silver in the individual event, losing to Nikolay Kovalev in the final. He also won silver in the team event, along with Kim Jung-hwan, Won Woo-Young and Oh Eun-seok.
Gu finished the 2013-14 season ranked #1 in the world, claiming Korea's first Fencing World Cup title. In the 2014–15 Fencing World Cup he won gold at the Coupe de Monde in Budapest, the Sabre de Wolodyjowski in Warsaw and the Villa de Madrid in Madrid, before finishing 5th at the 2015 World Fencing Championships in Moscow. He maintained his world #1 rank to the end of the 2014-15 season to claim his second World Cup title.
Gu is also the 2010, 2012 and 2014 Asian Champion, as well as the 2010 and 2014 Asian Games champion.
In 2016, Gu Bon-gil made a guest appearance in Got7's Hard Carry, a reality show, and he lost to former HK youth representative Jackson Wang in a friendly bout.