Montreal Epee Grand Prix – June 1-3 2007

There’s a lot riding on this tournament for the US Men’s Epee team.

For men’s epee, this is the last Grand Prix event before the World Championships in St. Petersburg.  As such, it is a crucial event for Olympic qualification.  There will be 4 team events in the 2007-2008 season that will also count for Olympic selection, but the seeding of those events will be determined by results from this season.

Only the points earned from April 2007 through March 31st, 2008 count for Olympic selection.  That makes Montreal the 2nd out of 6 Grand Prix events plus the 2007 World Championships to be factored into Olympic selection.

Here’s the formula: Top 4 teams go in, then the top team in each zone.  As of today (only counting the Monal Grand Prix results), the top teams are:

1. France
2. Hungary
3. Russia
4. Venezuela

The top remaining teams from each region are:
Africa: ??
Americas: United States
Asia: Korea
Europe: Poland
* China can place a team based on being Olympic Host, making this a 9 team event.

Looking at the current rolling World Cup standings puts the US outside of the Games.  The US is 45 points behind Venezuela, and Ven is out of the top 4, which would put the US in a difficult position.

Montreal could set the US up for a good qualifying run or set them in the hole and looking to make a huge run at the World Championships.  Cuba also figured to be a big factor as they have strong fencers but don’t have the budget to make it to the European or Asian world cups to earn points.  They always make things difficult on Venezuela and could jumble up the American zone even more.

Note – If there is no team from the African zone, then that would go to the next team in the world rankings, which (based on the Monal event) would be Estonia.