Kiria Tikanah delivers Singapore’s best-ever Asian Games fencing result

Over the years, the “flag-bearer’s curse” has stood in the way of some of the world’s best athletes.

While it is just a myth, Canada’s Simon Whitfield, an Olympic gold and silver medallist, crashed during the bike segment of the triathlon and failed to finish the race after carrying the flag at the 2012 London Games.

At the same Games, Filipina weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz also endured a disappointing performance, carrying 97kg in the snatch but failing to register a successful lift in the clean and jerk after taking on flag-bearer duties. She eventually became the Philippines’ first Olympic gold medallist at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

So when national fencer Kiria Tikanah Abdul Rahman was unveiled as one of Singapore’s flag-bearers for the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, some of her friends could not resist giving her a little warning about the fabled curse.

Thankfully, the Singaporean had other plans at the Aichi Sky Expo on Sept 22.

Shrugging off the bad vibes, she made history by storming into the women’s epee final before losing 15-8 to South Korea’s reigning world champion Song Se-ra. It was Singapore’s first-ever fencing silver medal at an Asian Games.

The 26-year-old Kiria said: “Coming in as flag-bearer and as one of the oldest fencers on the team, there was really a lot more on me mentally as compared to previous Asian Games. These Asian Games, I really felt like I wanted to show something for the country and also for my team and I’m glad I managed to this time.

“Hopefully it will motivate the rest of the fencers in the coming days and it’ll also be a good boost for our team in the team event.”

Before the Games, Kiria had expressed confidence that the Republic’s fencers had the potential to challenge on the continental stage, especially after some encouraging results in recent times.

At the Asian Fencing Championships in June, she and her teammates won a historic women’s epee team bronze. A year earlier, she clinched an individual bronze at the same event.

Riding on that belief, Kiria made an impressive run to the final in Nagoya to win Singapore’s first women’s epee medal and only their third in fencing at the quadrennial event.

Lim Wei Wen won the Republic’s first Asiad medal in the sport in 2014 when he claimed the men’s epee bronze, before the women’s foil team clinched bronze at the 2018 Jakarta Games.

“Today I really trusted myself, I didn’t hold back, didn’t overthink a little too much so I really decided what I wanted to do and just went for it,” said Kiria, who finished 15th at the previous edition of the Games in 2023 after she was eliminated in the table of 16.

“I didn’t stutter, I didn’t hesitate as much as before, that really made the difference today and I’m hoping with the same mentality, the rest of my teammates as well, we are able to hopefully bring home a medal in the team event.”

In the pool round earlier that day, Kiria was placed second in Pool 3, after winning four of her five bouts. She then received a bye into the table of 16, before beating Japan’s Miho Yoshimura 14-13 to advance to the quarter-finals.

Kiria then battled through some intense bouts as she defeated Kazakhstan’s reigning Asian champion Irina Bakaldina 15-14 in the quarter-finals to earn her place in the last four, where she dispatched China’s Yang Jingwen 15-14 to set up a meeting with Song.

On what got her through these close encounters, she said: “A lot of confidence and a little bit of delusion as well. You don’t know if it will work but you just trust and go for it.

“Sometimes, even if you know it’s the correct action but the opponent doesn’t react the way you want them to, then it’s not going to work out either.

“So I’ve internalised that and when I’m fighting for the last touch, there was really nothing I could do but to choose one action and hope for the best and today, I guess I chose the right actions at the last point.”

Her coach Henry Koh credited Kiria’s historic performance to many weeks of hard work and sacrifice.

In preparation for the Asian Games, they had six training camps across Singapore, China, Italy and France.

He said: “This is a result that has been a long time coming. We worked really hard for it so I’m pleased that it has paid off. It was a lot of work as well, a lot of time sacrificed and I’m grateful because it’s just wonderful to see the flag raised here in this arena.”

On the first day of fencing action, Kiria’s epee teammate Elle Koh bowed out in the quarter-finals after a 15-11 loss to Japan’s Tamaki Terayama.

In the men’s foil individual event, Samuel Robson put on a creditable performance before falling to Hong Kong’s 2025 world champion Ryan Choi 15-12 in the quarter-finals, while Raphael Tan exited in the table of 32 after a 15-11 loss to Uzbekistan’s Radmir Semeneev.

This article was originally published in The Straits Times.