34 year old Valentina Vezzali became the first Italian to win three consecutive gold medals when she defeated Korea’s Nam Hyunhee 6-5 in the gold medal match at the Beijing Fencing Hall. Fellow Italian Margherita Granbassi bested teammate and former world champion Giovanna Trillini 15-12 for the bronze.
In the first day of fencing that saw all four top seeds advance to the medal rounds, Vezzali was dominant throughout. Until her gold medal bout, she was only challenged one, by China’s Lei Zhang who wilted at the end of a 10-7 match. Even Trillini, Vezzali’s longtime teammate who hails from the same town, could only muster 3 touches against the "Queen of Swords".
Two Olympic gold medals, 5 world titles and over 60 world cup victories are not enough to quench Vezzali’s competitive fire. Vezzali has been the world cup points leader in 10 different seasons and second in 1995 and 1998. She only fell out of the top 2 in 2005, when she missed most of the fencing season pregnent with son Pietro. She returned from maternity leave a few months later to win her 4th world championship.
In the gold medal bout, Vezzali opened it up with an early 3-0 lead on a mix of attack, riposte and counter-attack on a baffled Hyunhee. Early in the second period, Hyunhee finds her point and ties the match at 3. At 3-all Vezzali sneaks into attack distance and hits an unprepared Hyunhee. The Korean collides with Vezzali on the next phrase and is penalized with a yellow card. She tries one more attack on the Italian, but time expires for the period.
Fencing matches are fenced in 3 periods of 3 minutes each with a 1 minute break in between. A fencer can end the bout early by getting to 15 points. In the event of a tie, there is a one minute sudden death overtime.
In the third period, Hyunhee scores twice quickly and is now up by one touch. Her lead will be short-lived as Vezzali attacks and scores with only 30 seconds remaining. At 5 seconds left, Vezzali launches an attack that scores and puts her up 6-5. A quick attack by Hyunhee is off target and with two seconds left Vezzali holds her off and claims the gold medal.
An exhausted Vezzali is picked up by her coach and carried around the venue on his shoulders, taking a full tour around smiling and waving to the cheering crowd.
