The 2008 gold medal winning Ukrainian women’s sabre team continued to steamroll the competition at the 2009 World Championships team event. Anchored by Olga Kharlan, the Ukrainian team defeated France in a lopsided 45-38 match.
The final team match pitted the Ukrainian team of Olga Kharlan, Olena Khomrova, Olga Zhovnir, and Galyna Pundyk against the French team of Carol Vergne, Leonore Perrus, and Solenne Mary.
Khomrova started off the match besting France’s anchor, Perrus, 5-3. Kharlan then doubled up the score and left France’s Mary in a daze as France looked at a 10-5 deficit. Caroline Vergne provided a ray of hope as she rallied off 4 straight touches on Zhovnir, winning the bout 8-5 to bring France within two points to a 15-13 match score.
All of France’s smiles faded on the next bout as Khomrova went 5-2 over Mary to put the Ukraine back up 5 points in a commanding 20-15 lead. The Ukraine sat Zhovnir and sent Pundyk up against Perrus and fenced the French anchor to a 5-5 stalemate.
Kharlan then extended the lead by one touch on Vergne to bring the match to 30-24. Mary made up a point for France, going 6-5 against Pundyk. In the next bout Khomrova started with two straight touches, but then with the score 37-30, Vergne rallied to score 4 in a row. Khomrova made the adjustment and scored the next 3 to send the match to the final bout with the Ukraine up 40-34.
Perrus was unable to put together any sort of rally and traded touches with Kharlan and was only able to score 4 points to Kharlan’s 5 for a final match score of 45-38.
In the bronze medal bout, China defeated Russia 45-41.
A reconstituted US women’s sabre team came in with the #3 seed, but was defeated in the round of 8 by a more experienced French team 45-34. The US then beat Germany 45-33 before losing the 5th place bout to Italy 45-40 and ended up placing 6th. The US team is fencing without Olympic silver medalist Sada Jacobson and Olympic bronze medalist Rebecca Ward. Jacobson is retired from competition and Ward has taken the year off to focus on college studies.
2009 Women’s Team Sabre: World Championship Final Rankings
| 1 | UKRAINE | UKR |
| 2 | FRANCE | FRA |
| 3 | CHINE | CHN |
| 4 | RUSSIE | RUS |
| 5 | ITALIE | ITA |
| 6 | U.S.A. | USA |
| 7 | POLOGNE | POL |
| 8 | ALLEMAGNE | GER |
| 9 | COREE | KOR |
| 10 | ROUMANIE | ROU |
| 11 | HONGRIE | HUN |
| 12 | HONG KONG | HKG |
| 13 | CANADA | CAN |
| 14 | GRANDE-BRETAGNE | GBR |
| 15 | ESPAGNE | ESP |
| 16 | TUNISIE | TUN |
| 17 | JAPON | JPN |
| 18 | SINGAPOUR | SIN |
| 19 | AZERBAIDJAN | AZE |
| 20 | KAZAKHSTAN | KAZ |
| 21 | TURQUIE | TUR |
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