Germans win Madrid team sabre.

Russian Alexey Yakimenko takes the individual title.

Nicolas Limbach (GER) remains the #1 ranked men’s sabre fencer despite not fencing in the Villa de Madrid.  Alexey Yakimenko (RUS) used Limbach’s absence to solidify his hold on the #2 FIE world ranking, moving to within 12 points of the top individual ranking.

The German team, however, won the all-important team event and climbed to 3rd in the FIE team world rankings.  Germany defeated Belarus in the final.  Italy defeated Russia for 3rd place.  In the team rankings Italy and Russia sit at #1 and #2.

Germany’s national coach Vilmos Szabo stated that the German team will need to end up fifth to qualify for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The US had a tough day, placing 12th in the team event.  Regional rival Canada placed 13th and sits only 2 team points behind the USA for Olympic qualification.  In the rolling FIE rankings, the US sits at 8th place and Canada 11th.  The rolling rankings are used for initial seeding of the team events.

Nicolas Limbach had been medically cleared to participate in the world cup event, but stated that he felt two weeks was not enough recovery time and preferred a 6 week recovery period.  Because he remains the top ranked sabre fencer, he stated he wanted to concentrate on the team event.  The 25-year-old was unable to fence in the final of his last event in Athens two weeks ago, due to an injury in his right thigh.

Individual Recap:

Alexey Yakimenko took the event with a 15-10 victory over Julien Pillet (FRA).  They were joined on the podium by Aldo Montano (ITA) and Woo Young Won (KOR).

Only 3 US fencers made the top-64.  Of those, Jeff Spear came out with the top result as he won his first match 15-13 over Cosmin Hanceanu (ROU) but lost in the 32 to Jaime Marti (ESP) 15-11.  Ben Igoe lost to Zsolt Nemcsik (HUN) 15-8 and James Williams lost his top-64 match to Dmitri Lapkes (BLR) 15-10.

Team Recap:

In the team event the US fencers lost their round of 16 match to the Ukraine 45-42.  In the placement rounds the US defeated Great Britain 45-27, lost to China 45-42, and lost to Spain 45-32 to take 12th.

Canada faced a similar route, losing their top-16 match 45-25 to Belarus then losing their first placement round 45-33 to Spain.  Canada then won matches against Turkey, 45-38, and Poland, 45-37 to climb up to a 13th place final result.

Final Results: Individual

Final Results: Team