Lee Kiefer and Alexander Massialas Win Gold, Silver at 2017 Absolute Fencing Gear Long Beach Foil Grand Prix

Lee Kiefer and Alexander Massialas close out the 2017 Absolute Fencing Gear Long Beach Foil Grand Prix with Gold and Silver medals, respectively. This result puts Lee Kiefer as the #1 Women’s Foilist in the world, the first US Women’s Foilist to ever achieve the top spot. And Alexander Massialas, who was already the #1 Men’s Foilist in the world, retains his title. Combined, US Fencing has the #1 spot for both Men’s and Women’s Foil for the first time in its history. The US Foil fencing program in general is quite strong and deep, with top 8 showings from Nicole Ross and Margaret Lu on the Women’s side, and Miles Chamley-Watson on the Men’s side, as well as top 16 showings from Jacqueline Dubrovich and Race Imboden. Interestingly, the medal stand was restricted to only 3 countries - Russia (3), USA (2), and Italy (3). With the exception of the surprisingly strong result from Marta Martyanova, who came into the event #118 in the world, the medalists consisted of fencers already in the top 4 FIE foil rankings and Olympic medalists. This demonstrates a strong amount of consistency from the world’s best foil fencers right now. The 2017 Absolute Fencing Gear Long Beach Foil Grand Prix was held at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, California over from March 17th to 18th. The next Grand Prix in the series will be an Epee-only event held in Budapest, Hungary this upcoming weekend, March 24-26. Below are the top 8 from both events and highlighted results featuring US Fencing competitors. Full FencingTime results can be found here.

Women’s Foil Results

1 KIEFER Lee USA 2 MARTYANOVA Marta RUS 3 DERIGLAZOVA Inna RUS 3 ERRIGO Arianna ITA 5 ROSS Nicole USA 6 VOLPI Alice ITA 7 LU Margaret USA 8 PALUMBO Francesca ITA … 13 DUBROVICH Jacqueline USA** 26 MASSIALAS Sabrina USA **47 BINDER Sylvie USA** 48 MINARIK Natalie USA **51 ZEISS Madison USA** 62 DEVORE Delphine USA **70 PRESCOD Nzingha USA** 72 BLOW Iman USA **74 NOTT Adrienne USA** 75 KLEINER Elyssa USA **77 TIEU May USA** 84 PARTRIDGE Morgan USA **92 DESCHNER Stefani USA** 94 ZUZULO Isabella USA **103 ZHANG Rachel USA** 106 CRUM Quinn USA **110 TAFFEL Sara USA** 124 MARTOS Sara Ann USA **127 LEE Morgan USA Full Women’s Foil Results at FIE.org

Men’s Foil Results

1 SAFIN Timur RUS 2 MASSIALAS Alexander USA 3 AVOLA Giorgio ITA 3 GAROZZO Daniele ITA 5 KRUSE Richard GBR 6 LE PECHOUX Erwan FRA 7 CHAMLEY-WATSON Miles USA 8 HA Taegyu KOR … 10 IMBODEN Race USA** 34 MEINHARDT Gerek USA **36 MOELIS Samuel USA** 42 ITKIN Nick USA **46 TOURETTE Geoffrey USA** 67 KANESHIGE Brian USA **72 MATHIEU Adam USA** 74 BRAVO Kenji USA **79 MITBERG Gregory USA** 80 ZHENG Andrew USA **87 SHIN Philip USA** 89 CHANG Jerry USA **98 JEON Nathan USA** 99 KUMBLA Sidarth USA **101 RANADIVE Rishi USA** 104 MANNAN Zohaib USA **105 ORTS Lucas USA** 106 DANIEL Ashton USA **111 RHEINGANS-YOO Duncan USA** 121 CHANG Jason USA **123 CHU Aidan USA** 125 MARINO Joseph USA **133 DUDEY Thomas USA** 137 WU Jerry USA**Full Men’s Foil Results at FIE.org