Bali 2025 Asian Championships FINAL | Japan v China | Men Foil Team 2025

Final bout at the Bali 2025 Asian Championships Men Foil Team Competition between Japan (Left) and China (Right)

On the Left: Japan
Japan is the reigning Olympic Champion and World Champion. Japan had defeated Hong Kong in the Bronze Medal Match of the 2024 Asian Championship, and the Semifinal of the 2023 World Championships. I do not remember if Hong Kong has ever defeated Japan in the past.

After the Olympics, Japan has not won any World Cups, coming closest with a silver at the 2025 Paris World Cup. In the later part of this season, SHIKINE Takahiro fell out of the Top 16 and has been replaced by BABA Shunsuke in team events.

Interestingly, IIMURA Kazuki anchored Team Japan to win the Paris Olympics, instead of SHIKINE Takahiro who traditionally anchors Japan (after the Tokyo Olympics - before then, MATSUYAMA Kyosuke usually anchored Japan). But since then Japan went back to having SHIKINE Takahiro anchor until SHIKINE Takahiro was taken off the team.

Individually, none of the Japanese fencers medalled this season, which might reflect how tired they are since MATSUYAMA, IIMURA (top 4 at Olympics), and SHIKINE had all medaled individually in the Season of 2023-2024.

On the Right: Team China
After not qualifying a team for the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, China managed to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games over Hong Kong and Korea. This is not that team. The senior members of the team took a break from competition after Paris, though most of them returned to fence at the 2025 Shanghai Grand Prix. Unsurprisingly, they have not medalled this season.

None of the Chinese team are in the FIE top 16. MO Ziwei won Silver in the individual event by beating Cheung Ka Long in the round of 32. CHEN Haiwei and WU Bin are both not selected, replaced by the Juniors - ZENG Zhaoran and GUO Yifan. Both were pretty good, ZENG Zhaoran might have been Cadet World Champion (I don't remember) and GUO Yifan was Junior World Champion. Both have been trying to break out this season, making Day 2 consistently (ZENG lost in T64 15/0 at Turin which was kinda funny, then 15/2 at another comp lol), both making top 8 at the 2025 Shanghai Grand Prix.

Match-up History:
This is kind of a rematch of the 2023 World Championships Finals - replacing SHIKINE Takahiro, WU Bin, CHEN Haiwei, with NAGANO Yudai, GUO Yifan and ZENG Zhaoran.

The last time Japan lost against China was probably when LEI Sheng and MA Jianfei were still fencing - maybe 2016?

Team JAPAN
IIMURA Kazuki 飯村一輝
NAGANO Yudai 永野 雄大
MATSUYAMA Kyosuke 松山 恭助
BABA Shunsuke (R)

Team CHINA
MO Ziwei
XU Jie
ZENG Zhaoran
GUO Yifan (R)

0:00 NAGANO Yudai 永野 雄大 v MO Ziwei
6:07 IIMURA Kazuki 飯村一輝 v ZENG Zhaoran
9:07 MATSUYAMA Kyosuke 松山 恭助 v XU Jie
17:21 NAGANO Yudai 永野 雄大 v ZENG Zhaoran
23:02 MATSUYAMA Kyosuke 松山 恭助 v MO Ziwei
25:53 IIMURA Kazuki 飯村一輝 v XU Jie
29:04 MATSUYAMA Kyosuke 松山 恭助 v GUO Yifan (R)
34:17 NAGANO Yudai 永野 雄大 v XU Jie
37:37 IIMURA Kazuki 飯村一輝 v MO Ziwei