Olympic Fencing 2016: Medal Winners and Scores After Monday's Results

Russia's Yana Egorian won the final of the women's fencing individual sabre event on Monday, beating compatriot Sofya Velikaya 15-14 in a thrilling contest at the 2016 Rio Olympics.  

A strong first period saw the experienced Velikaya take an 8-5 lead as she confidently pushed back her 22-year-old opponent.

Egorian refused to lie down in face of Velikaya's onslaught, however, and recovered in the second as she pulled the scores back to 12-12.

The 31-year-old again got her nose in front and edged closer to victory, but after showing tremendous resilience to fight back once more to 14-14, Egorian won the deciding point with a deft flick of her sabre.

As NBC Olympics' Eric Weeks noted, Egorian had been somewhat unfancied against the reigning world champion: 

In the bronze event, Olga Kharlan of Ukraine beat France's Manon Brunet 15-10 in a more straightforward encounter.

The former raced to a 4-1 lead early in the first period, and while the Frenchwoman was able to pull the score back to 10-10 in the second, she failed to win any of the final five points as Kharlan clinically saw out the duel.

Brunet did provide one of the highlights of the day in her semi-final with Velikaya, though, with the Russian mounting a comeback of her own to come out on top, per FIE:

Per NBC's Nick Zaccardi, one of the shocks of the day came in the round of 16, when Ekaterina Dyachenko upset Mariel Zagunis, 15-12:

However, the Russian was herself quickly beaten in the quarter-finals by compatriot and ultimate gold medal winner Egorian.

Earlier, American Ibtihaj Muhammad made Olympic history, per Rio 2016:

Her day ended earlier than she would have liked, though, per Zaccardi:

According to DW Sports, she expressed frustration with her performance: "You just kind of become frustrated with yourself. I always say that in a sport like fencing, you're your own biggest opponent. If you can control yourself and your nerves and your emotions, and execute the actions that you want, you'll always be successful. And I failed to do that today."

On Tuesday, the men's individual epee will be contested.