France Wins Epee Championship

Gauthier Grumier of France used the same action 6 times in a row to open up a 3 point lead over Hungary and closed out Boczco in the final bout as France defeated Hungary 45-41 to claim the Men’s Team Epee world title.

Earlier in the day, the US team of Seth Kelsey, Ben Bratton, Cody Mattern, and Eric Hansen placed 14th.

The gold medal bout between France and Hungary was evenly matched at 11-all at the end of the 3rd bout. In the fourth bout Ulrich Robeiri gave France their first lead by speeding up the action against Geza Imre and winning the bout 9-7 to give France a two touch lead.

Hungary equalized the score at 22-all when Gabor Boczko went 4-2 over Jerome Jeannet, setting up the match between Andras Redli and Grumier.

During their bout, Grumier and Redli traded touches and then Grumier caught Redli on the hand to go up one point, 24-23. Grumier then proceeded to push Redli to the end of the strip – forcing the Hungarian to make some action. Redli responded with a fleche attack and Grumier countered, earning a double-touch.

Grumier would continue the same action for the rest of their encounter, scoring every time with 4 double touches and 2 one-light counter attacks to the arm to put the French lead at 3 points.

Jeannet then sat to let Lucenay fence against Imre. Imre worked to press and seemed to be forcing his attack as Lucenay performed well timed counters to score 3 unanswered points. Imre backed off for almost 30 seconds before pressing forward again and scoring on a double-touch. Imre would score 3 more points before doubling out to Lucenay in what ends up being a 5-5 stalemate.

Robieri would go 3-2 on Redli in the 8th bout, handing off a 38-34 lead to Grumier for the final bout. In the final bout of the match Boczko is forced by time to attack Grumier, who is happy to just go for counter-attacks or double-touches. With 18 seconds remaining and a 3 point lead, Grumier attacks into to end the match 45-41.

U.S. men’s epee fencers and coach look on in a team match against Great Britain in early rounds of team epee competition at the World Championships. Serge Timacheff – FencingPhotos.com

The US men’s epee team started off the day with a win against Great Britain. According to Graham Watts, the British Fencing High Performance Director, the US team led all the way. In the round off 16 the US team lost to the Ukraine 45-32.

In placement rounds, the US lost their match to Spain 39-34, then defeated Japan 45-28 and lost to Russia 44-37 to end up 14th.

In the team events at world championships the teams fence off to determine final place, unlike the individual event which is a simple single-elimination tournament.

In the bronze medal bout, Poland defeated Germany 23-22.

Men’s Team Epee – Final Results