Simon Shan of West Vancouver won the men’s epee title at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games on Wednesday, November 11, beating Serbia’s Vukan Radenovic 15-9 in the gold medal bout at the Dakar Expo Center. FINAL: Simon Shan 15, Vukan Radenovic 9. CBC Sports reported Shan’s gold on Wednesday, and it is Canada’s first gold medal of these Games.
Simon Shan Fencing Gold, Bout By Bout
The men’s epee field was small and unforgiving: 13 fencers from 13 nations, one pool round, and then direct elimination with no room for a bad bout. Shan, whose full name is Junzhe (Simon) Shan, opened with five wins and one loss in his pool, scoring 26 hits against 12 received for a plus-14 indicator that carried him into the elimination table as the third seed, according to the bracket built from the official Dakar 2026 results service.
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A bye through the round of 16 put him straight into the quarter-finals, and from there the run never tightened. Shan beat Colombia’s Juan Esteban Plazas 15-6 in the quarter-final, beat Belgium’s Wout Van Laecke 15-10 in the semi-final, and then beat Radenovic 15-9 for gold. Van Laecke took the bronze, beating Romania’s Stefan Popa 15-12 in the bronze medal bout. Three elimination bouts, three wins by five hits or more: on the day, nobody in the Dakar Expo Center field stayed close to the Canadian for long.
Canada’s First Gold At Dakar 2026
Canada’s medal count at Dakar 2026 now reads one gold, one silver and three bronze medals, as the Games medal record for Canada lists them. Judoka Anes Mati won the country’s first medal of the Games, a silver in the men’s 66 kilogram division on November 1. Skateboarder Evie Pritchard added a bronze in women’s street on November 5. Boxers Mehreen Khakh and Lisandro Garcia won bronze medals on November 11, the same day Shan fenced, in the women’s 51 kilogram and men’s 55 kilogram divisions.
Shan’s gold is the one that moves Canada from the podium count to the top step. Canada sent a team of just 28 athletes to Dakar, competing in 10 of the 25 sports on the programme, and fencing sent exactly one athlete: Shan. He was Canada’s entire fencing team, and he leaves Senegal as a Youth Olympic champion.
A Cadet Worlds Medallist Arrives On Schedule
The result is a breakthrough, but it is not a surprise to anyone who has followed Shan’s last two seasons. The Canadian Olympic Committee’s Dakar team guide lists Shan, of West Vancouver, British Columbia, as the silver medallist at the 2026 FIE Cadet World Championships, following up the bronze he won at the same championships in 2025. Panam Sports made the same point before the Games opened, noting that Canada’s Simon Shan owns two Cadet World Championship epee medals.
He fences out of Dynamo Fencing Club in British Columbia, and his domestic record already reaches past his age group: the Canadian Fencing Federation’s senior men’s epee rankings have carried Shan, born in 2010, at the top of the national list in 2026. A Youth Olympic title won at 16, on top of two Cadet Worlds medals in two years, puts him on the path Canadian fencing has been building since Eleanor Harvey won the country’s first ever Olympic fencing medal, a bronze, at the Paris Games.
Why Dakar Matters Beyond One Medal
Dakar 2026 is the fourth edition of the Summer Youth Olympic Games, running from October 31 to November 13, and the first Olympic sporting event ever held in Africa. It is also the first Summer Youth Olympics since 2018: Dakar was supposed to host in 2022 before the pandemic pushed the Games back four years. More than 2,700 athletes aged 14 to 18 are competing in 25 sports.
The Canadian Olympic Committee frames the Youth Olympics as a step, not a destination. “Dakar 2026 is an excellent opportunity for developing young athletes to gain valuable experience at a multi-sport Games, while being exposed to the educational opportunities and the values of the Olympic Movement,” Eric Myles, the COC’s Chief Sport Officer, said when the team was named. “We are confident in the benefits the Youth Olympic Games can bring, including seeing Team Canada athletes who have used their YOG experience as a step in their journey, going on to compete at the Pan American Games and the Olympic Games.” To date, 29 Canadians who competed at previous Summer Youth Olympic Games have gone on to become Olympians.
Shan now belongs at the front of that conversation for Canadian fencing. He arrived in Dakar as a two-time Cadet Worlds medallist, handled a 13-man field without a close bout on elimination day, and gave Canada its first gold medal of the first Olympic event held on African soil. The Games close on November 13, and whatever Canada adds before then, the gold at the top of its medal count belongs to a 16-year-old epee fencer from West Vancouver.
