The Olympic Fencing events are underway! Early action is complete as all of the round of 64 matches are blowouts, with the winners earning the right to face off against the tournament’s top seeds.
In the first round of 64 match to get moving, Wieckowska of Poland storms out to a 4-0 lead vs. Byrne of Ireland. Byrne gets on the scoreboard with a slow attack and then followes it up with an attempt at another one, but is caught with her arm back.
It’s a case of "premier attack no" as Byrne’s hand comes back during her motion, allowing Wieckowska to take over on the attack. At the break, Wieckowska leads 8-1.
In other matches Besbes of Tunisia leads Chetty 8-2 at the break and Pundyk of Ukraine leads 8-4 at the break.
Starting out the second period, Byrne closes the gap 6-9. An attack, another "premier attack no" call, and a close-out riposte put it back 12-6 for Poland.
The first matches of the round of 64 end with Besbes winning 15-2. Besbes will face Perrus in the 32. Wieckowska wins 15-8 to face off against Nechaeva. On the red piste, Pundyk wins 15-7 to face Velikaya.
The second batch of the round of 64 is starting up now after about a 10 minute break.
The yellow piste features Toure of Senegal vs. Gonzalez of Cuba. Winner gets to face Sada Jacobson. Over on the blue is Sassine of Canada vs. Wood of South Africa. Sassine goes up early 4-1. She is dominant in the bout and makes a nice long attack to take over 8-1 at the break.
On the red strip the match is Bujdoso (GER) vs Cloutier (CAN) – Bujdoso takes a 2-0 then 2-1 lead and takes the rest to lead 8-1 at the break.
Watching 4 matches at once is pretty difficult. All four are looking to be blowouts with the closest Gonzalez up 8-3 over Toure.
Second period for all four matches starts pretty much simultaneously. Bujdoso is the first done with a 15-2 win, using point in line to slow Cloutier down before taking over on the final attack. Navarro of Spain follows with a 15-4 win. The end of the Sassine bout has her up 14-2. Wood falls short on a cut and Sassine takes over the attack to win 15-2.
Gonzalez wins the closest match in the round of 64 – 15-7 over Toure of Senegal.
For the round of 32 we will have:
Gonzalez vs. Jacobson
Sassine vs. Zagunis
Navarro vs. Ward
Bujdoso vs. Tan