Meinhardt and Willette Medal at Junior Worlds

Gerek Meinhardt and David Willette earned bronze medals that the 2010 Junior Men’s Foil World Championships and Cadet World Champion Alex Massialas placed in the top-8 after losing in the quarterfinals to Italy’s Tommaso Lari.

Willette lost a tough 15-14 match to Alaa El Din El Sayed (EGY) in the semi-finals.

El Sayed went on to win the Junior World Championship 15-13 over Tommaso Lari (ITA).

Meinhardt started the tournament with a 4-1 result in the preliminaries and then marched through his direct elimination bouts with victories over WLOSEK Maciej Wlosek (POL) 15-3, Moritz KRÖPLIN (GER) 15-9, Roman KUTS (RUS) 15-13 and Cadet silver medalist Edoardo Luperi (ITA) 15-12.  Meinhardt then faced off against Lari.

In that bout, Meinhardt was down 6-3 but went on a 6-0 run to go up 9-6.  The fencers traded touches and Lari was able to close to a 2 point margin (12-10) at the end of the first period.  In the second period Lari knotted the score at 12.  They would tie again at 13 but then the Italian won the last 2 touches for a 15-13 victory.

Willette’s match with El Sayed (EGY) went down to the wire as the fencers ended up tied 14-14 at the end of regulation.  The semi-final bout started out badly for Willete, how found himself down 9-6 at the end of the first period.  Willette clawed back in a much slower 2nd period to take an 11-10 lead.  In the 3rd El Sayed battled back to take a 14-12 lead but was unable to put the bout away in regulation as Willette tied the match with 26 seconds left.

El Sayed won the match 21 seconds into the overtime period.

Earlier in the day, Willette went 4-1 in pools then racked up wins against  James Davis (GBR), Serguei Byk (BLR), Jakub Joniak (SLO), and Enzo Lefort (FRA).  In those bouts he boasted a 60-29 scoring margin as none of his opponents were able to break into double-digits.

Final Placement: Junior Men’s Foil World Championships