Russia Takes Two – Golds over Italy in Foil and Epee

Russia notches up two upset wins in the finals to take how gold in the Women’s Foil and Men’s Epee events at today’s World Championships events.

In women’s foil, Italian Valentina Vezzali loses in the final 8 and Russia’s Aida Shanaeva defeats Korea’s Jeon Hee Sook for the world championship title. Matteo Tagliariol is unable to hold onto a late lead and loses to Anton Avdeev (RUS) in men’s epee.

{sidebar id=1}Aida Shanaeva (RUS) held off a rally by Korea’s Jeon Hee Sook to win the women’s foil world championship bout 12-11 in overtime. Earlier in the match, Shanaeva punished Jeon with attacks into the Korean’s preparation step. At the end of the 3rd and final period of fencing time, Jeon closed the gap and won priority for the final minute of overtime.

If fencers are tied at the end of the regulation time of a direct elimination match, then one fencer is randomly assigned priority for the sudden death overtime. If no touches are scored in the overtime minute, then the fencer with priority wins the match.

As the final minute started, Shanaeva pushed Jeon back to the Korean’s side of the fencing piste and executed an attack that landed to win the match. Shanaeva was the tournament’s 14th seed and Jeon the 9th seed prior to today’s fencing.

The young US squad gained much needed senior world cup experience as Ambika Singh and Nzingha Prescod each won their first round matchups. Lee Kiefer and Doris Willette each fell in their first round matchups. Singh finished 21st, Prescod 25th, Kiefer 33rd, and Willette 62nd.

Russia and Italy showed their dominance in women’s foil as each contry sent 3 fencers into the final 8. Surprisingly, the final bout did not include Italy’s Valentina Vezzali, who has won the most world championships and world cups of any active fencer. Women’s foil was a day of upsets with only 2 of the top 8 seeds making it to the quarter-final rounds.

In men’s epee, 2008 Gold Medalist Matteo Tagliariol lost 4 straight touches after an equipment failure and lost in a dramatic double-touch to Russia’s Anton Avdeev.

Early in the match, Tagliariol and Avdeev traded points before the Italian started using his height advantage to hit a variety of targets. Just as he seemed to have the final match under control, he had to switch weapons. The small delay gave Avdeev time to regroup his thoughts as the Russian rattled off 3 straight points to tie up the bout and then take the lead.

Just as Tagliariol seemed to have regained his bearings, Avdeev found a way to hit the target and closed out the bout 15-14. In fact, the final touch looked like it would be Tagliariol’s, but Avdeev’s epee found the target just before the scoring box locked him out. The resulting double-touch gave the world championship to Russia.

US Olympian Seth Kelsey, the 7th seed, was upset in the first round 15-9 by China’s Wang Feng. Ben Bratton won his first bout 15-9 to Michael Kauter (SUI) before losing to Korea’s Jung Seung Hwa 15-11.  Jung ended up in the final 8, losing to eventual champion Avdeev.  Bratton placed 25th and Kelsey 31st.

Avdeev came into the final day as the 20th seed, and was helped out by 61st seed Nishida Shogo (JPN) who knocked #4 seed Gabor Boczko (HUN) in the first round of action.

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2009 Women’s Foil World Championship – Final 8

http://www.live.fie.ch/antalya/resultats/

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2009 World Championships: Women’s Foil Top 64

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2009 Women’s Foil World Championships:
Final Ranking

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2009 World Championships: Men’s Epee Top 8

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2009 World Championships: Men’s Epee Top 64

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2009 Fencing World Championships:
Men’s Epee Final Ranks