With Olympic qualification complete, fencers and teams now look to the rest of the world cup season to work on their FIE rankings which will be used for the seeding into the direct elimination brackets at the Olympics.
Since athletes are no longer chasing after qualification points, and countries know if they have fencers qualified, countries will focus on sending athletes who are qualified for the Games or athletes they are looking to develop for the Rio Olympic cycle.
This weekend’s events are open for discussion on the forums. Gladius offers his insight as to how the nations are using these final world cups to prepare for the Olympics:
“Most nations wait to make the final decision on who will be part of the national team at the Olympics until later to give everyone a fair chance and to come up with the best/strongest team as close to the Olympic games as possible. The national selection is not only based on international points but on the evaluation and recommendation of the selection commission which then is reviewed and may be changed by the national federation.”
Men’s epee and women’s saber are especially impacted as the team world championships have already happened, so some countries are not entering teams while others may be giving their younger fencers a try to give more experience for the next Olympic cycle.
Men’s Saber: Coupe Akropolis World Cup (Athens, Greece)
Discussion: https://fencing.net/forums/thread57079.html
Only Greece (host), France, and Italy have 12 fencers signed up for this world cup. 129 athletes from 20 countries are registered for this event.
Daryl Homer reports that all 4 members of the US Olympic squad have advanced to the top-64. [Saturday’s] Matchups are as follows: Homer vs. Yagodka, Spear vs. Pastore, Morehouse vs. Reshetnikov, Williams vs. Muorolo.
Men’s Foil: Prince Takamado Trophy Wakayama, Japan. (Grand Prix event)
93 fencers are entered in this event and Gerek Meinhardt has posted the pools via his Facebook feed.
Men’s Foil discussion: https://fencing.net/forums/thread57082.html
Women’s Foil: Challenge Jeanty Grand Prix Marseilles, France
US outlook: Of the 4 USA foil fencers registered, Kiefer (#7 FIE), Prescod (#16 FIE), and Willette (#17 FIE) will start on Sunday in the tableau of 64. Ross (#30 FIE) will have to go through the qualification rounds on Saturday.
Follow the competition in streaming Video, Sunday April the 29th 2012 starting at 8:30 am
Heidenheim Senior Men’s Epee world cup (individual and team)
Discussion: https://fencing.net/forums/thread57081.html
Of the 191 fencers registered for the individual competition, Germany, as the host country will have 24 fencers, followed by France, Italy, and Switzerland with 12, the maximum allowed. USA has 7 fencers with only Soren Thompson directly qualified for the second day in the table of 64.
After pools Seth Kelsey joins Soren Thompson on advancing to day two of the event. Seth Kelsey only dropped one pool bout (5-4) to come out with a +13 indicator and the 30th seed going into day two.
We’ll post results as we can Facebook and Twitter along with photos we have coming in from some events. After the weekend we’ll have the recap articles to outline the impacts of these results to seeding for London.
