First day of fencing at the 2011 National Games, India - Part 2
The first day of the sport fencing took place on February 21 at the 34th National Games in Shiekh Bhikhari Administrative Block, Mega Sports Complex in Ranchi.
The day comprised of four events out of which the Men’s Epee team and Women's Individual Foil event were concluded with the following results.
The preliminary round of the Men's Epee team comprised of four face-offs that were conducted among the states namely Manipur versus Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh versus Karnataka, Punjab versus Rajasthan and Services versus Delhi.
Among these only four teams managed to reach the semi-finals namely Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Services, respectively. These four then competed in the semi-final round to qualify for the final combat.
These four fought in two pairs namely Manipur versus Madhya Pradesh and Punjab versus Services for the semi-finals. Among these, Manipur and Services qualified for the final round.
The Manipur Men epeeist team defeated Services team and won the gold medal, whereas Services secured its silver medal. The bronze medal was awarded to both the runner-up epee teams.
Next was the Women’s Individual’s Foil event that had thirteen preliminary bouts, which were played among individuals from six various Indian states. These six states are provided as Punjab, Kerala, Karnataka, Manipur, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.
The opening bout was fought between Roji Devi Wanglembam of Manipur and Vijyanti Tigga of Jharkhand in which Roji had won by 4-0 point score. She played her second bout against Usharani Devi from Manipur and succeeded by 5-2.
On the other hand, Vijyanti was beaten down in her face-offs against Usharani by 0-5 and Jasmine of Punjab by 1-5. The other outshining female foilist was Jasmine who won two of her three face-offs against Vijyanti by 5-1 and Usharani by 5-3, occupying a
semi-final seed after Roji Devi.
Bindu Devi of Madhya Pradesh played very well against Kerala’s Athira Ramachandran, Lakshmi N from Karnataka and Inderpreet Kaur of Punjab, qualifying into the semi-final with an undefeated record against the three at 5-2, 5-3 and 5-2 scores respectively.
The last semi-final position was taken up by Punjab’s foilist named Inderpreet Kaur. Among the participating states, Punjab overpowered the rest to secure two of the four semi-final positions of the women’s individual foil event.
The semi-final round, Roji Devi fought against Inderpreet whereas Jasmine combated Bindu Devi to step into the finals. Among the four, Roji and Jasmine made it to the final round for an encounter.
Both gave a good fight to each other, but Roji Devi succeeded with an obvious score point lead of 15-12 at the end of the final bout hence, winning the gold medal for her state Manipur whereas Jasmine was left with silver medal for Punjab. The bronze medal
was shared between the two Inderpreet and Bindu.
On concluding the whole day’s fencing events, the most out-performing state with two gold medals was the Manipur women epee team and the women foilist Roji Devi. The states Punjab and Services were dominatingly found giving tough time in the semi-final rounds
and in the finals next to the Manipur.
The host team was nowhere to be found in the semi-final and final rounds of all events, being defeated in the preliminary round of all events conducted. Jharkhand fencers made it very disappointing for the Jharkhand Fencing Authorities (JFA) with no medals
won in the event.
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