2011 Russian Youth Championship for women sets off in Saratov: Fencing News
The 2011 Russian Youth Fencing Championship for women was inaugurated on April 28 in Saratov, Russia. This event will conclude on May 3, including both the individual and team competitions. The first day of the Under-24 covered two weapon
events in the individual discipline namely Women's foil individuals and Women's sabre individuals.
The young fencers to participate were required to carry a birth date in 1988 or later, qualifying for the Under 24 age limitation.
In Women's foil individuals, a total of 45 fencers participated from all over Russia, including the internationally renowned Diana Yakovleva from Moscow and Camilla Gafurzyanova from Tatarstan.
Yakovleva is the current junior champion of Europe whereas Gafurzyanova is the silver medal holder of the 2009 World Championship from the Russian team.
However, it was surprising to see that both of them got beaten down and Anastasia Ivanova from Bashkortostan took up the gold-medal win.
Gafurzyanova ended up second by getting defeated from Ivanova by 15-10 score difference in the final bout, whereas Yakovleva got defeated by the same rising star in the semi-final bout by 15-9 score difference.
Previously, Gafurzyanova contested Anastasia Melentyeva from Samara region in the semi-final and made it to the medal winning round by trouncing her opponent by 15-5.
Ivanova caught the spot-light by out-shining the current fencing favourites and crowning the national event.
The second event of the day was the Women's sabre individuals in which a total of 47 female fencers had participated.
One of the shine-outs among these participants was the Russian fencing team member Anna Illarionova from Moscow, who was found confident during the championship.
Illarionova allowed none of her opponents to score more than a dozen scores against her throughout the event.
She faced-off against her native fellow from Moscow Veronica Danilova in the semi-final bout and turned out victorious by defeating her opponent by 15-9 score difference.
On contrary, the other semi-final round was played between Veronica Danilova and Catherine Titov both from St. Petersburg in which Alina Ozolina ended up with a close win at 15-11 score difference.
The final bout was held between Ozolina and Illarionova, which quite much turned out to be a solitary win for Illarionova by beating her opponent by 15-6 score difference.
The next competitions to be played among the junior women fencers have been scheduled as below:
29.04 - Foil juniors - team championship - Sabre Juniors - team championship
30.04 - Foil juniors - a personal priority - Sword juniors - a personal priority
01.05 - Foil junior-team championship - Sword juniors - team championship
02.05 - Sword juniors - a personal priority - Sabre juniors - a personal priority
03.05 - Sword junior-team championship - Sabre juniors - team championship
All the participant teams will return home on May 4, prior to the last day of competition.
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