Olympic Qualification Analysis – Men’s Epee after Legnano

The top seeds this weekend came out flat and did nothing to solidify their spots while two fencers on the outs made big moves to displace their countrymen.  Ulrich Robieri (FRA) makes an appearance taking 2nd at the event.  Does he even have a shot at qualification?

What else is going on with the qualification slots?

There was a shuffling of the order for the top-12 in the men’s epee qualifications and some flip-flopping among the French and Italian teams.  Other than two spots, all of the current qualification standings held, including the zonal qualification slots.

Paulo Pizzo (ITA) retains the top seed in Olympic qualifying at 29 points ahead of Kauter and Heinzer who are tied at 123 points.  All of this despite 5 of the top 9 going out in the round of 64.  In fact, only 3 fencers in the top 20 in Olympic qualification made the top-8!

Not surprisingly, the two fencers that made the most out of the flatness of the field were the two who needed it most.  Matteo Tagliariol used his top-8 finish to edge ahead of Alfredo Rota for the 2nd Italian qualifying slot.  Rota went out in the 32 and now sits just one point behind Tagliariol for the 12th and final Olympic qualifying spot.

Yannick Borel (FRA) also displaced his countryman by taking 3rd place.  He was 15th in qualifying and jumped up to 10th, sitting 10 points ahead Ronan Gustin.

Coming out of nowhere in this event was Robieri.  He took 2nd at the event, but has only 57 qualifying points.  In order to qualify, he would need a minimum of 103 points (assuming that the lower half of the current qualifiers all lose their T-64 matches in the next 3 world cups.)  That means he has to turn in continual podium finishes, the top half of qualifiers have to do well and the bottom half have to lose in the 64 or 32.  Not a great formula for success.

The zonal spots in the Americas and Asia actually look a bit more open to competition now than they did before.  Neither Buisvert-Simard (CAN) nor Fernandez (VEN) did anything of note in the event, which leaves only 8 points between them for the 2nd American zonal spot.  One top-16 result in the next 2 events can decide that race.

Soren Thompson and Seth Kelsey are both on track to qualify, but are close enough to the edge that they really need to make sure they’re keeping pace with the pack.  Soren is still top-16 in the FIE rankings, so gets a bye to the 64 and guaranteed points.  If either can make the 16 in Doha, that should secure their spots.

A similar situation exists in the Asia zone.  Alimzhanov (KAZ) earned no points at this event and will have to fight out of pools going forward, while Jung (KOR) is 16th, so gets a bye to the 64 at the next event, guaranteeing him 3 points.  That leaves the door open for Goujie Li (CHN) who is sitting at 68 points.  It’s an 11 point gap, but a 32 at Doha would put him on pace to steal the zonal slot from Alimzhanov.

Here are the current qualifiers as of Legnano:

Next events:

Doha Grand Prix (1.5 x points) – Feb 10th
Tallin World Cup (1 x points) – March 2nd
Paris World Cup (1 x points) – March 16th