Fencing England Trophy 2011: Women Sabre Cup results
2011 Women’s Sabre England Trophy, which began on February 25 at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, London, was concluded on February 27.
The individual women sabre events were conducted on the first two days whereas the team events ended on last day.
The sabreurs making it to the top-16 of the individual event included the world class fencers like Mariel Zagunis from USA, Chrystall Nicoll from Great Britain, Olga Kharlan from Ukraine, Gioia Marzocca from Italy, Sophia Velikaia
from Russia and Charlotte Lembach from France. They faced-off the fencers that had an automatic bye to the top-8 in the next level of the competition.
The sabreurs making it to the top-8 included the talented American fencer Zagunis, Russia's Ekaterina Diatchenko, the Italian Marzocca, Galyna Pundyk from Ukraine, Russia's Velikaia and Svetlana Kormilitsyna, Irena Wieckowska from
Poland and the Ukrainian top fencer Kharlan.
Advancing to the next level, the talented Mariel, Gioia, Sophia and Olga made it to the top-4 to compete among each other in the next level. These fencers had outshined the competition since the first round of the event.
Here, Italy’s Gioia overpowered the US’s Mariel by a 15-12 score win and qualified for the final combat along with Olga of Ukraine, who defeated the Russian fencer Sophia with a winning hit of 15-14 score won to proceed to the final
face-off.
In the final bout, Olga of Ukraine got the victory against Italy’s Gioia with a 15-11 obvious win score, winning the Individual event title of England’s Saber Trophy being played at the Crystal Palace.
The top three positions were Olga as first, Gioia as second whereas Mariel and Sophia shared the third position.
As for the team event, China women came first that were seconded by Russia with Poland at the third position.
Last day, on February 27 the team event were held and the teams that reached the top 4 included Russia, Poland, China and Italy. And Ukraine, besides being a strong team, was left behind getting defeated by Italy with a 41-45 score
loss.
In the next round, Russia fought against Poland whereas China confronted Italy’s sabre team. The two teams that proceeded towards the final were Russia (45-38 score win) and China (45-35 score win). These two winning team had an
aggressive face-off where China took the title cup of the England’s Saber Trophy 2011 on trouncing the Russian sabreurs with a 45-36 score win.
Later, Poland and Italy confronted each other to take home the bronze medal. Italy gave a very tough fight to Poland yet got defeated on the winning hit made by Poland closing the score at the verge of 45-44.
The two events clearly displayed the strength of the winning fencers belonging to the countries Ukraine in Individuals and China in the team event of the England’s Trophy.
However, the host fencers were nowhere to be found, getting dropped in the preliminary elimination rounds of the competition, which was very disappointing. The team hardly made it to the top 16 and ended up at the 11th
rank among the top-14.
Among the individuals, Great Britain’s Chrystall Nicoll had the 15th spot followed by Louise Bond Williams at the 19th rank in the top 140 fencers that participated in the event. This ranking was a bit encouraging,
yet showing that the British female fencers need a lot work to do for the Olympic Games 2012 to be hosted by their home ground.
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