Italy continued its domination of the foil event by winning the gold medal in Men’s Team Foil. Italy faced China in the final match of the event and traded the lead through the first 3 matches.
In the fourth bout, Simone Vanni put Italy up for good, ending the bout at 20-18. China trailed by as many as 7 points before closing in during the final bout, but lost by 3 points, 45-42.
Italy’s Andrea Cassara predicted gold for his team on seeing that they would face China: “We have a very difficult match ahead of us tonight. China is an exceptionally difficult opponent, because they rely mostly on their physical power. Sanzo being injured is a problem for us, but I insist on my previous statement, that we will win the gold medal.”
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Jon Tiomkin (left) leaps to avoid the Russian attack. Photo courtesy Serge Timacheff/FencingPhotos.com
The United States lost to Russia 45-38 in the bronze medal match. The team of Dan Kellner, Jed Dupree, and Jon Tiomkin started off the match with a slight lead over Russia, negating the skills of individual bronze medalist Renal Ganeev.
Russia pulled ahead by 1 point at the end of the 5th of 9 bouts and held onto a slim 3 point lead heading into the final match. US anchor Jon Tiomkin was unable to close the gap, however, and Russia ended on a 5-1 run to win the bronze medal 45-38.
After the loss, Dan Keller put the fencing world on notice to look out for the US in years to come, “It was a tough game. We are disappointed from the defeat. We are impressed from this experience. The future belongs to us.”
The biggest upset in this event belonged to the United States. In the quarterfinals the 8th seeded US team upset world #2 Germany. The US stormed ahead to a 20-11 lead. The US held the lead until 2003 World Champion Peter Joppich went on a 14-4 run to put Germany ahead 40-39. Dan Kellner closed out the match with a 6-3 bout over Andre Wessels and the United States won 45-43.
CNBC will be airing coverage of the Men’s Team Foil medal rounds at 4pm Eastern time on Saturday, August 21st.
