France thrashed an overmatched Polish team by a score of 45 to 29 in the Men’s Team Epee final. Brothers Jerome and Fabrice Jeannet celebrated their 2nd team gold in 2 Olympics as France also won the Gold medal in this event in 2004. Italy would take the Bold medal with a 45-35 victory over China.
Jerome Jeannet won his first bout 5-4 and brother Fabrice Jeannet added to the lead, 10-7. After a 5-1 bout by Robeiri France would lead the Polish team of Tomasz Motyka, Robert Andrezejuk and Radoslaw Zawrotiniak by 7 points.
{sidebar id=1}Poland had defeated China and France defeated Italy to get to the Gold medal bout.
The French team would continue to extend the lead and closed the 6th bout with a 30- 14 lead. In their first 6 bouts of the match only Motyka would score more than 3 touches. During the 8th bout Jerome Jeannet hurt his weapon hand falling forward while attempting a fleche against R. Zawrotniak. He would fence one more touch before asking for an injury timeout. He complained that he had bent back his wrist.
After Jeannet regained the piste the fencers kept distance and moved about, but Zawrotiniak held off on making any attacks or blade takes agaist Jeannet, who was holding his epee low. The sportsmanship of Zawrotniak was cheered by the crowd until the referee called passivity with 26 seconds remaining in their bout.
The last match would feature Fabrice Jeannet vs. Motyka and holding a 38-26 lead.
In the bronze medal bout, China would go up early in the first period, but a 5-2 run by Alfredo Rota would put Italy up 6-5. G. Dong would use a 2-0 bout to bring China within 1 at 10-11 favoring Italy. Italy would pull away with Rota providing a 9 point cushion going into the 8th bout.
In team matches, there are 9 bouts between each of the 3 team members on either side.
There was a bit of concern in the later stages of the bout as Tagliariol fell while fleching against Dong. Doctor’s worked on Tagliariol’s leg, applying tape but the Gold medalist was unable to continue. They subbed in Carozzo at 33-22. He would hand the reigns over to Confalonieri with Italy up 34-23.
The matched ended in a highly entertaining last bout in which 23 touches were scored and Italy ends up with the bronze medal 45-35.
During the semifinals, Italy’s team of Gold medalist Matteo Tagliariol, Alfredo Rota, and Diego Confalonieri could not catch up to the French team of Jerome and Fabrice Jeannet and Ulrich Robeiri. Jerome Jeannet jumped out to a 5-1 lead which was extended to 10-3 by brother Fabrice. France would never trail and would hold a lead of 10 points after the 5th bout.
In the other semifinal match, Poland defeated China in a nailbiting 45-44 match. After the first bout ended in a 3-3 tie, China went up to a 10-6 lead in the second. Poland kept chipping away at China’s lead until they overtook the host nation 30-29. The two teams traded the lead until entering the last period with a 40-39 score favoring Poland. In the last bout of the match Tomasz Motyka had Poland up 44-42, but China’s Wang Lei would close the bout to 44-44 before Motyka scored the last hit.
Favorite Hungary was upset by wildcard China in the quarterfinals of the Men’s Team Epee event, 45-43.