The US Men’s Epee team made their mark on Sunday with a 45-41 victory over France en route to a 2nd place finish at the Montreal Grand Prix, losing in the gold medal bout to Italy 30-31.
More importantly, the US picked up world cup points to improve their world ranking and set themselves in a nice position in the Americas zone for Olympic qualification.
The US placement coupled with Venezuela’s early loss to Spain, moved Venezuela down from 4th to 5th in the current world rankings. Their 8th place finish only earned them 22 points compared to the US picking up 52 for taking second.
Not only did the US men’s team place higher than any other country in the America’s Olympic zone, but they picked up enough points to put them in 3rd place for the Olympic qualifying totals.
The Montreal Grand Prix was the 2nd of 7 events (6 Grand Prix events plus 2007 World Championships) that will be used to determine Olympic participation.
The full table of results can be found on the FIE site.
The next team event for Men’s Epee will be the Pan American Championships July 14-23rd and then the World Championships in St. Petersburg, Russia in October.