The Pan American Zonal Fencing Championships will be held in conjunction with the USA Fencing Summer Nationals in Reno, Nevada. The Pan Am event runs July 4th through July 9th starting with the individual events on the first 3 days and team events the last 3 days. This tournament is crucial in the 2012 Olympic qualification process.
The remainder of the 2011 fencing season and the first half of the 2011-2012 international fencing calendar will count for selection to the 2012 Olympic Games. During the qualification process, the regional championship event provides significant international points that countries and individuals will use to provide a boost to their standings.
During any year, the regional events are ones in which only fencers and teams from that region compete. For the western hemisphere that means an event without any teams from Europe or Asia, providing a significant amount of FIE points to the winners that can carry them into good seeds for future international events including the world championships.
The regional events are limited to fencers from that region (Europe, Africa, Asia, Americas) but count as a Grand Prix event – 1.5x normal world cup points for the individual events.
In an Olympic qualifying year, these points are even more crucial as countries within the region which are vying for one of the regional qualifying spots don’t often finish too far ahead or behind their rivals. In the case of Men’s Sabre, the US and Canada sit only 2 points apart, but the difference between a first and second place finish at the regional event is 12 points. Those points will be very hard to make up without a team finish a full bracket ahead (finishi the ng in the 5-8 vs. a 13-16 finish, for instance) of the rivals.
For European teams, the European regional event is crucial and even those teams securely in the top-4 want to win the event to guarantee their ranking and to freeze out some potential rivals for Olympic competition.
The following US fencers are qualified to fence at the Pan American Zonal Championship this July in Reno, Nevada. (All based on the current USA Fencing Team Standings):
Men’s Epee:
- Seth Kelsey
- Soren Thompson
- Cody Mattern
- Ben Bratton
Men’s Foil:
- Miles Chamley-Watson
- Alexander Massialas
- Gerek Meinhardt
- Race Imboden
Men’s Sabre:
- Tim Morehouse
- Daryl Homer
- James Williams
- Ben Igoe
- (James hurt his ankle at the NYC World Cup. If he is unable to compete, the next US fencer in the team standings is Jeff Spear)
Women’s Epee:
- Courtney Hurley
- Kelley Hurley
- Lindsay Campbell
- Maya Lawrence
Women’s Foil
- Nzihgha Prescod
- Lee Kiefer
- Doris Willette
- Nicole Ross
Women’s Sabre
- Mariel Zagunis
- Ibtihaj Muhammad
- Dagmara Wozniak
- Daria Schneider
In most of the team events, the showdown is between the US and Canada. For Men’s Epee and Women’s Sabre there will be no team event at the Olympics, so the individual results will be the driver for qualification.
Later in the week we’ll follow up with a look at the various events and the top fencers and teams for the region.