Italy and USA win the first team gold medals

With the individual events complete at the 2014 Cadet and Junior World Championships, today saw the start of the team events. 

Junior Women’s Foil Team

Great Britain was one of twenty teams to compete for the title.  Ranked twelfth, they faced China in the round of 16.  Despite staying close early on in the match China ran out 45-26 winners with GB placed twelfth.

The semi-finals run concurrently with Russia overcoming Canada 45-40 and the USA beating Italy by the same score.  The bronze medal match between China (Cai, A. Huang, J. Huang and Chen as reserve) and Italy (Biagiotti, Cipressa, Palumbo with Mancini as reserve) started well for China but Italy took control in the third leg.  Despite a good eighth leg for China and their reserve coming on in the final fight, Italy ran away with it, winning 45-32.

The final saw a fight off between Russia (Alborova, Samsonova, Tripapina with Alexeeva in reserve) and the USA (Dubrovich, Kiefer, Massialas with Lu in reserve).  The Americans took a commanding 15-6 lead after the first three fights.  When Samsanova came off after the fifth bout against Massialas she had not scored a single hit.  That meant that the USA team was 25-10 up and the Russians immediately substituted Alexeeva in.  It was to no avail as the USA went into the last match 40-17 up.  Massialas came on to anchor the American team home against Tripapina and clearly the game plan was to use up the remaining time.  The USA became the Women’s Foil Team World Champions 42-24.

Full results here.

Junior Men’s Sabre Team

Great Britain did not enter this event but twenty-nine other teams did.  The first semi-final saw Italy beat Canada 45-36 after the Canadians massively outperformed their ranking of twelve.  In the second semi-final Russia edged a highly entertaining match with the USA with a final score of 45-41.  In the bronze medal match Canada (Arfa, Gordon and Lambert) went toe-to-toe with the USA (Dershwitz, Loss, Mackiewicz with Armijo as reserve).  Canada led 5-4 after the first match but the American team immediately took the lead from them after two fights (10-8) and never looked back.  The USA eased to a 45-27 victory.

A thrilling final between Italy (Affede, Curatoli, D’Armiento with Bonsanto in reserve) and Russia (Andreev, Danilenko, Trushakov with Buchkowskiy in reserve) followed.  Italy led 15-14 after the first three bouts and despite Russia taking over the lead at the end of the fourth fight (20-19), the Italian team were 30-29 up two thirds of the way through the match.  Andreev did a great job in the seventh to put Russia 35-32 up but an equally accomplished performance by Affede in the eighth meant that Curatoli only trailed by two in the anchor leg against Trushakov.  The Italian, going for his second gold medal of the Championships, came on to the piste with a look of determination.  A commanding display of sabre fencing took Italy to the World Championship title, 45-41.

Full results here.

The penultimate day of the Championships sees team events in Junior Men’s and Women’s Epee.