Paolo Pizzo (ITA) was the 3rd Italian fencer to earn a gold medal at this years World Championships with his defeat of Bas Verwijlen (NED) 15-13 before a packed house in Catania, Italy.
The Italian fencer started of the match behind 4-0 on Verwijlen, but fought back with 4 straight points of his own to tie the match at 4. Pizzo would go ahead at 6-5 and end the first period up 8-5. In the second period the two fencers fought touch for touch with Verwijlen baiting Pizzo’s attack and launching low counter-attacks which made the taller Dutch fencer look off balance even as he scored.
With the score tied at 13-13 to start the 3rd period, Verwijlen gambled on a fast attack on Pizzo just 18 seconds into the period. Pizzo was ready, however, and caught Verwijlen on the counter-attack to go up 14-13. Pizzo would then follow up with an attack of his own just 5 seconds later to claim the 15-13 victory.
US Top-16 Results
Two US fencers, Soren Thompson, and Seth Kelsey, earned top-16 results in the Men’s Epee event. Thompson and Kelsey maintained their positions in the Adjusted Olympic Rankings. Thompson currently sits in the top-12 automatic qualifiers for the Olympics and Kelsey holds the top Regional bid.
Soren Thompson entered the day as the 61st seed but won his opening match against #4 Gabor Boczko (HUN) 15-9. He then defeated Bartosz Piasecki (NOR) 15-8 before falling to Pizzo 15-9 in the round of 16.
Kelsey missed out on a top-8 result when Nikolai Novosjolov (EST) fought back from a two touch deficit to tie their top-16 match at 7-7 with just a minute remaining. At 20 seconds left a double-touch was scored bringing the score to 8-8 and then Novosjolov went up by 1 touch with just 4 seconds remaining. Kelsey went for the equalizer but was unable to score and lost 10-8. Earlier in the day Kelsey had defeated Yiu Chung Tsui (HKG), 13-7 and Dmitry Karuchenko (UKR), 7-6.
Ben Bratton (USA) was looking to make an upset bid of his own, but fell in the opening round to Alfredo Rota (ITA) 15-14 in overtime. Cody Mattern (USA) won his first match against Frederik Von Der Osten (DEN) 15-5 and lost in the 32 to Kyoung Doo Park (KOR) 5-1.
Other fencers from the American zone currently up for Olympic qualification are Ruben Limardo (VEN) (a top-12) and Hugues Boisvert-Simard (CAN) (the regional #2 behind Kelsey.)
New World #1 Ranking
With the victory, Pizzo moves up from 11th in the world to claim the new #1 ranking. Grumier, the former #1, fell to 7th in the rankings.
US fencer Seth Kelsey also fell in the rankings, dropping to 18th while teammate Soren Thompson climbed to 10th.
Final Results: 2011 Men’s Epee World Championship
| Rank | Name | Nationality |
| 1 | PIZZO Paolo | ITA |
| 2 | VERWIJLEN Bas | NED |
| 3 | PARK Kyoung Doo | KOR |
| 3 | KAUTER Fabian | SUI |
| 5 | NOVOSJOLOV Nikolai | EST |
| 6 | IMRE Geza | HUN |
| 7 | LIMARDO Ruben | VEN |
| 8 | ALIMZHANOV Elmir | KAZ |
| 9 | LUCENAY Jean-Michel | FRA |
| 10 | KELSEY Weston | USA |
| 11 | ROTA Alfredo | ITA |
| 12 | BOREL Yannick | FRA |
| 13 | ZAWROTNIAK Radoslaw | POL |
| 14 | BOUZAID Alexandre | SEN |
| 15 | BOISVERT-SIMARD Hugues | CAN |
| 16 | THOMPSON Soren | USA |
| 17 | GRUMIER Gauthier | FRA |
| 18 | FIEDLER Joerg | GER |
| 19 | HEINZER Max | SUI |
| 20 | KARUCHENKO Dmitriy | UKR |
| 21 | VIDEIRA Joaquim | POR |
| 22 | GUSTIN Ronan | FRA |
| 23 | JUNG Jin Sun | KOR |
| 24 | TORKILDSEN Sturla | NOR |
| 25 | BERAN Jiri | CZE |
| 26 | PIASECKI Bartosz | NOR |
| 27 | MATTERN Cody | USA |
| 28 | NISHIDA Shogo | JPN |
| 29 | HEREY Anatoliy | UKR |
| 30 | KURBANOV Ruslan | KAZ |
| 31 | ROBINSON Seamus | AUS |
| 32 | TOURCHINE Igor | RUS |
| 33 | BOCZKO Gabor | HUN |
| 34 | TAGLIARIOL Matteo | ITA |
| 35 | SUKHOV Pavel | RUS |
| 36 | SCHMITT Martin | GER |
| 37 | AVDEEV Anton | RUS |
| 38 | NIKISHIN Bogdan | UKR |
| 39 | STEFFEN Benjamin | SUI |
| 40 | PELLETIER Vincent | CAN |
| 41 | VON DER OSTEN Frederik | DEN |
| 42 | SOMFAI Peter | HUN |
| 42 | ALVARADO HERNANDEZ Mario | ESP |
| 44 | KRUCZEK Piotr | POL |
| 45 | BAJGORIC Tigran | CAN |
| 46 | NYISZTOR Alexandru | ROU |
| 47 | JUNG Seung Hwa | KOR |
| 48 | WANG Lei | CHN |
| 48 | YIN Lianchi | CHN |
| 50 | CANAS Kelvin | VEN |
| 51 | FERNANDEZ Silvio | VEN |
| 52 | CHARTOVICH Artsiom | BLR |
| 53 | BRATTON Benjamin | USA |
| 54 | POP Adrian | ROU |
| 55 | TSUI Yiu Chung | HKG |
| 56 | LAHTINEN Alexander | FIN |
| 57 | LI Guojie | CHN |
| 58 | TULEN Tristan | NED |
| 59 | YAGHOUBIAN Ali | IRI |
| 60 | PRIINITS Sten | EST |
| 61 | EL SAGHIR Ahmed | EGY |
| 62 | ANDRZEJUK Robert | POL |
| 63 | SAMUELSSON Anton | SWE |
| 64 | SALM Juri | EST |