2011 IWAS Wheelchair Fencing World Cup concludes in Lonato: Fencing Update
The thirteenth edition of Paralympic World Cup named 2011 IWAS Wheelchair Fencing World Cup, which was being held at the Sports Hall Lonato, Italy, concluded on May 22.
The three-day event had been organised by Villa dei Colli Lonato Onlus from May 20-22, which turned out to be a historical competition with a complete absence of sponsors, this year.
It comprised of all the three weapon events namely epee, foil and sabre. A total of 131 disabled fencers took part in the World Cup, representing 19 different nations including Belarus, Canada, China, France, Austria, Germany, Great Britain, Iraq,
Italy, Lebanon, Poland, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ukraine, Hungary, Russia, Spain and USA.
On the last day, Men’s sabre individuals of both category A and B were held followed by men’s and Women’s foil team event.
In Men’s sabre individual discipline, Jun Yi Chen from China and Laurent Francoise of France took the top podium place in category A and B respectively.
On the other hand, in Men’s foil team discipline, China took the top podium place whereas in Women’s foil team event Russia won the top spot after beating down Hungary by an astonishing 45-33.
In the individual competition of the World Cup, Germany’s Simone Briese Baetke was a shine-out, with two gold wins, one each in Men’s foil and Men’s epee discipline.
This radiant German veteran gave a commendable performance at the Paralympic platform and made his Head Coach, Swen Strittmatter, proud on the Italian forum.
There were two other German fencers, namely Vanessa Siegel and Steffen Nordmann, who participated in the wheelchair fencing World Cup.
Siegel was placed 21 in the Women’s epee individuals held under category A, whereas she climbed up at the 5th rank in the Women’s sabre open individual competition.
On the other hand, Nordmann competed in the men’s epee and ended up 24thamong the 44 participants in the competition.
The coach was disappointed, but he commented that Nordmann missed to occupy a better seed due to lack of international experience.
The event had a historic importance for the disabled athletes that struggled hard at the platform to earn points and improve their international ranking for qualifying into the October World Championships, this year in Catania.
This championship will be the first to unite the international calendar of both the Olympic and Paralympic events with an integrated form of Championship this year.
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