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Valentina Vezzali Wins Record Breaking 60th World Cup Gold

Vezzali at the 2004 Olympics (c) FencingPhotos.comThe Italian site Feder Scherma posted an article on Vezzali after her win in the Havana World Cup:
Valentina Vezzali increases her legendary status with her victory at the "Nancy Uranga" Grand Prix in Havana, Cuba.  This marked her 60th victory in a World Cup event.
In the team competition the following day the Italian WF team took second place, losing to Poland 33-43.
Vezzali and the Italian Women’s Foil team fence next in Las Vegas June 21 and 22.


The foilist from Jesi, Italy, beat the American Erinn Smart (14-3), the Russians Viktoria Nikichina (15-10) and Olga Lobyntseva (15-4), the French Adeline Wuilleme (15-9), the Polish Malgorzata Wojtkowiak (15-8), and in the final for gold the other Russian Svetlana Boiko (4-1).

Vezzali is remarkable.  She came from having a child and taking time off of fencing to coming back a few months later to win a world championship.
The performance of the other members of the Italian team was quite opaque. Benedetta Durando eliminated for top eight (9-15) by the Polish Magda Mroczkiewicz, finished 12th; for top sixteen, out Margherita Granbassi (19th, 11-15 against the Hungarian Edina Knapek) and Ilaria Salvatori (20th, 5-15 against the Polish Malgorzata Wojtkowiak). Altogether not very satisfactory, other than the gold, for the CT Andrea Magro, "Special congratulations to Valentina who made history today in this sport. On the other hand I’m not at all satisfied by the performance of the other girls who fenced below their standard. Of course, it can always happen but today they made too many mistakes."

In the team competition the following day the Italian WF team with Valentina Vezzali, Margherita Granbassi, Ilaria Salvatori, and Benedetta Durando (without Giovanna Trillini victim of an allergy attack) had to accept second place losing 33 – 43 in the final against Poland’s second victory of 2008 after Jéju. Italy had previously beaten Chile, China (27-17), and Russia (29-16).

This was the fifth team event of this season for the Italian WF team and it was their second best result after the victory in Tokyo in May. In their matches against Poland they tied (1-1) with Poland taking their revenge this time for the loss at the Grand Prix in Danzig. A bitter comment by CT Andrea Magro after the competition, "We fenced well, but for the final when we got somehow lost. We paid for a hesitant start without being able to reach a certain continuity in the action. A real pity."

The next event for WF is for Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 in Las Vegas, the last competition before the Italian championships (June 28-29) in Jesi, and the European championships in Kiev, (July 4-11).

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Photo courtesy FencingPhotos.com

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