Fencing History: US Fencers - Clean sweep at Junior Women’s Foil and Cadet World Championship 2011
In the history of Fencing, there are several events both in World Cup tournaments and Fencing Championships, which represent the excellence of a country and are unforgettable in the history. The same tremendous victory was taken by the United States Fencers
which was awesome and will always be remembered in fencing history. The USA fencers made a clean sweep on the final day’s events of The 2011 Junior and Cadet World Fencing Championships.
The 2011 Junior and Cadet World Fencing Championships were taken place at King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Centre in Jordan, Dead Sea. The American trio exhibited an exciting game on the final day of 2011 Junior Women’s Foil and Cadet World Championship
on April 1. The three musketeers from the United States of America managed to bag the top three spots in the Junior Women’s Foil event of the championship. Nzingha Prescod grabbed gold medal, Lee Kiefer took silver while Margaret Lu won the bronze medal.
It has happened for the second time in the history of fencing that a single country grabbed the top three medals in the Women’s foil event. Previously, the honours went to Russia in 1994, during the Junior Women’s Foil event of Junior and Cadet World Championships.
Total 96 women fencers from 43 countries participated in this event. In the qualifying round, 13 teams were drawn out with seven fencers in each pool. 26 participants were eliminated in the pool matches whereas 70 fencers qualified for the table-128 in the
direct elimination round.
Each of the three Americans remained undefeated in all six bouts of the pool matches. Their victories in the pool matches gave them an automatic bye into the table-64. Lu entered in the elimination table as the number one seed. Kiefer entered as the number
two. Prescod earned the number four seed.
Prescod defeated Mirela Ifrim, from Romania, in the table-64, Texas’ Mona Shaito in the table-32 and the Korean Min Jeong Kim in the table-16.
Lu stood victorious against the Israel’s Noa Hanina in the table-64. She qualified for the quarter-final after beating the Slovakian Katarina Pokorna and the Russian Adelina Zagidullina in the previous rounds.
Kiefer took her onset victory against the Polish Natalia Golebiowska with five point’s lead of 15-10 score line. After defeating the Canadian Alanna Goldie and the Polish Martyna Jelinska, Kiefer advanced to the quarter-final round.
In the quarter-final, Lu defeated the Polish Zuzanna Sobczak, Kiefer defeated the Italian Alice Vopli while Prescod took the victory against the Russian Leyla Pireva.
In the semi-finals, Kiefer defeated the French Ysora Thibus while Prescod defeated her American counterpart, Lu. In the final match, Prescod defeated Kiefer with the score of 15-11.
The gold medalist Prescod said, “It’s been so long since I won Cadets and it just feels great to finally win again and be back up there.” Kiefer already has already won the silver medal three days before. She said on her silver victory, “I’ve got mixed feelings.
It’s great to have a medal, but I obviously really wanted to win gold”.
Lu and Thibus ended at third and fourth places respectively with bronze medals. The great victory was taken by the United State’s athletes and it has written in the history of Fencing.
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