Eight U.S. epee fencers have been working hard this week in Izmir, Turkey at the 2005 World University Games. On Friday, all four U.S. men’s epee fencers advanced out of pools and Olympian Soren Thompson reached the second round before being ousted in individual competition. A string of tough match-ups in the elimination round was too much for Team USA to overcome in what turned out to be an extremely deep epee competition on the first full day of events at the Games.
The hardest-luck fencer on the U.S. squad was Christian Rivera (Bloomfield, Mich./Ohio State University), who faced four Olympians, including 2004 Gold medalist Marcel Fischer of Austria, in his six morning pool bouts. Rivera battled his way through the tough draw and qualified through to the afternoon. But when the field was seeded for the elimination round Rivera drew a fifth Olympian in his first round match, teammate Soren Thompson (San Diego, Calif./Princeton University). Thompson defeated Rivera, 15-3, to advance to the second round.
"There were four Olympians in my morning pool. I fought but today wasn’t a good day," Rivera said. "I knew today was going to be hard and I was going to have to fight in every single bout. My intensity level never changed."
In the second elimination round Thompson faced Dmytro Chumak of Ukraine for the second time on the day. Thompson defeated the Ukrainian, 5-0, in the opening pool bout for both men in the morning. Thompson fenced aggressively in the rematch but Chumak jumped out to an early lead and advanced to the third round with a 15-9 win.
"One of his better actions is going straight to the hand and he hit a few of those," Thompson said. There were some tight touches in the middle of the match and having to go after him puts you at a disadvantage.
"It’s hard to judge your whole day by the result. Sometimes you draw easier guys and don’t have to fence that well and the result is better while other times you might be fencing great but you draw the wrong guy. I felt pretty good. I thought I was fencing well today."
Ben Solomon (Chagrin Falls, Ohio/Princeton University) advanced out of the pool round with a 3-2 record before falling to Vitaly Osharov of Ukraine, 15-12, in the first round of elimination bouts. Solomon’s pool round included a 5-4 overtime win over Brazil’s Athos Schwantes.
"I made adjustments to what he (Osharov) was doing at first but then he made some adjustments as well and I wasn’t able to counter," Solomon said. "He got one step ahead of me and I made some mistakes that were pretty critical but overall I was happy with how I fenced."
Kip Cox (San Diego, Calif./University of California-Berkeley) had the shortest morning of the U.S. quartet as he was placed in a five-man pool that shrunk to four when one fencer did not show up for his bouts. Cox won three of four matches in the morning session before falling to Canada’s Tigram Bajgoric, 15-12 in the first elimination round. Cox had to overcome an equipment delay when his weapon failed and he was forced to switch to a back-up.
"A delay can have an effect on a bout but in this case it didn’t," Cox said.
"Neither one of us really came up with anything new during the delay.
Sometimes a delay will give someone time to come up with something but we pretty much resumed right where we were and nothing changed."
The men will compete next in the epee team competition on August 17.
U.S. women’s epee fencer Amy Orlando (Brookline, Mass./Notre Dame) turned in the top performance for the American in the women’s individual epee competition Monday. Orlando went 4-2 in her pool to qualify for the round of 64. From there she advanced to the round of 32 before losing a 15-10 decision to Germany’s Lisa Wollinsky. Orlando finished in 25th place in the overall standings.
Also advancing to the round of 64 was Kerry Walton (Londonderry, N.H./Notre Dame). Walton went 2-4 to advance out of her qualifying pool. She lost to Poland’s Daunta Dmowska in the round of 64.
"Kerry finished very well and with a little bit of luck could have joined Amy in the top 32," said U.S. Fencing Team Leader Jeff Bukantz. "Amy’s result was not a surprise to me as she had been competing exceptionally well in practice. She stayed within her game and employed a very successful defense game. Hopefully, she’ll be able to carry this over to the team event."
Other American fencers, Lindsay Campbell (Cambridge, Mass./MIT) and Maya Lawrence (Teaneck, N.J./Columbia University) both went 1-5 in their pool and did not advance.
"Based on their national rankings, the results were upside-down today," said Bukantz. "Maya and Lindsay didn’t have their top stuff today. Historically, when some of your top athletes have off days in the individual they come back extremely inspired in the team event, which is what we are hoping for."
Next up for the U.S. women is Thursday’s team epee event.
Reporting contributed by USOC Media Officer Todd Bell