Piers Gilliver snags sabre silver after tough Paralympic cycle

Piers Gilliver carried two aims into this Paralympics: to defend his epee title and to win a medal in sabre.

The 29-year-old has already boxed off the latter as he took silver under the roof of the Grand Palais in the men’s sabre Category A event.

Gilliver is best known for his feats with the epee, the oldest fencing weapon, having won GB’s first wheelchair fencing gold in 33 years in Tokyo.

But he has grown into one of the best sabre wielders in the world in recent years and matched his silver from last year’s World Championships at the Paralympics.

Gilliver overwhelmed Italy’s Matteo dei Rossi 15-8 in the quarter-final but needed to dig deep to come from 8-4 down to beat Artem Manko of Ukraine by a single point.

The gold medal bout began as a tight affair but Germany’s Maurice Schmidt pulled away to prevail 15-8, with Gilliver winning silver.

“I’m pretty gutted,” said Gilliver. “I hoped to come here and win the gold but it didn’t work out on the day.

“The competition days are always really tough, back-to-back tough competitions and it’s hard to process. Once the Games come to a close, you can really look back and be proud of winning a medal, it’s a big deal.”

Gilliver has come back from the abyss to win a sabre silver having battled vicious symptoms of concussion in the early part of 2023.

“It’s been a really tough cycle,” said Gilliver. “The last couple of years have been some of the hardest points of my life and there are points where I’ve questioned all sorts of things.

“There have been a lot of challenges and it’s been a tough one to get through, so it’s great to be able to even be here competing to be honest.”