France defeated the United States 45-37 on Sunday in the men's sabre team event to retain its Olympic title.

The three French sabreurs, Julien Pillet, Boris Sanson, Nicolas Lopez, all delivered excellent performance in the final bout, scoring 15 points respectively.

"The French team has entered a new cycle after the Athens Games, we have new members and we are still performing well. We deserve the honor that we win today," said Pillet.

His teammate Lopez said he had hoped to win two medals at the Beijing Olympics and now he has realized his ambitions.

"I won a gold medal in the team event and one silver in individual competitions," Lopez said. "That was what I had hoped for before coming to the Games."

On the U.S. side, Keeth Smart contributed a match high of 20 points. In his last encounter with Pillet, Smart made nine hits on his French rival, but still failed to offset so huge a deficit for the whole team.

France is the top seed under International Fencing Federation world rankings. They were also winners at the 2004 Athens Games and second place winner of the 2007 World Championships in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Italy took bronze medal of the men's sabre team event, which wrapped up the fencing event of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

After nine days of competition, France topped the medals table with two golds and two silver medals. Italy followed with two gold and five bronze medals, while Germany was ranked the third with two golds.

China, Ukraine and the United States also reaped one fencing gold respectively.