Imke Duplitzer wins at first Epee World Cup of the season in Rio de Janeiro – Fencing Update
One of the finest Female Epeeists of Germany, Imke Duplitzer seals a gold victory in the first Epee World Cup of the season conducted by the Brazilian Fencing Confederation at the Windsor Barra Hotel, Barra da Tijuca Beach in Brazil from May 6 to 8.
The 35-year-old gave a good fight to the Romanian counterpart Simona Alexandru in the final round. Both had a cut-throat battle for winning the gold medal but Imke managed to take up the last winning point, breaking the locked score of 14 each to a 15-14
victory.
This Women Epee World Cup is being held in the city of the forthcoming 2016 Olympic Games, comprising of both individuals and team competition.
The German coach, Piotr Sozanski praised her performance after saying that she fought technically well but her nervousness was quite notable. "A class performance," added Sozanski.
The European Champion competed against an Italian fencer Bianca Del Carretto in the quarter-final, which was a very tough fight. Imke made it into the semi-finals by defeating Bianca 15-14.
She met Ukrainian fencer Yana Shemyakina in the semi-final round, who competed very well against the German. However, Imke managed to defeat Yana 15-13 and headed towards the final bout.
The top-eight finishes of the individual competition were Imke Duplitzer from Germany as first, Simona Alexandru from Romania as second, Lubov Shutova from Russia as third sharing place with Ukrainian Yana Shemyakina. Russian Tatiana Logounova as fifth place,
Laura Flessel-Colovic from France was sixth, Ana Branza from Romania as seventh and Italian Bianca Del Carretto as eighth.
In the team competition, 22 nations participated in the Women Epee World Cup. The four teams to end up in the semi-finals were Romania, Italy, Korea and France.
Korea played against the French team, in which both teams were tied 33-33 when the time-out was called. However, Korea took the lead point and made it into the final bout.
On the other side, a similar battle was held between Italy and Romania, both going head-to-head with scores at 44 each. Finally, Italy was lucky enough to take up the winning point and qualify for the final bout against Korea.
The final bout was quite a single-handed play for Italy, as they defeated the Koreans by a large gap at 45-29.
Later, the third position play-off took place between the Romanian and the French Women’s team. It was a similar dominating play for the Romanians, as they trounced their French counterparts by a 45-28 score.
In team competition, the German team failed to qualify for the quarter-finals after being defeated by Great Britain.
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