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Bhavani Devi becomes India's first Olympic fencer

· Tokyo

Bhavani Devi becomes India's first Olympic fencer
Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

At Tokyo 2020, C. A. Bhavani Devi of Chennai became the first fencer from India to qualify for and take part in the Olympics.

Before her Olympic debut, Chennai sabre fencer C. A. Bhavani Devi had already been the first Indian to take gold at the senior Commonwealth Fencing Championship. No Indian fencer had qualified for the Olympics before she earned a place at the 2020 Games, staged in Tokyo in 2021. There she fenced in the women's sabre event. The Arjuna Award came to her in 2021, and in 2023 she won a medal at the Asian Championships, another first for an Indian fencer.

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