Italy's Andrea Baldini wins the gold medal in Men’s Foil World Cup: Fencing News
It was a big day for Andrea Baldini who won the gold medal in Men's Foil discipline of the 2011 SK Telecom Trophée, which started today at the Olympic Park in Seoul, Korea.
Korean Fencing Federation is the organising body of the SK Telecom Trophée Seoul. Baldini was an architect of extraordinary performance, who ended the play-off with a huge victory over the Brit, Richard Kruse. The match witnessed the 2009 World Champion's
talent on the stage. It would be enough to say that Kruse was the only opponent who added pressure to increase his touch by more than six hits.
Baldini started the day with the victory over the German, Andre Wessels, with the score of 15-4. He won the next main draw of round-32 against the Chinese, Jialuo s**+, with the same score.
In the round of 16, Baldini won the duel against the Frenchman, Enzo Lefort, with 15-9 and moved into the quarter-finals. His opponent in the quarter-finals was another Chinese, Liangcai Huang who lost the fight from a 15-8 score-line.
United State’s Alexander Massialas was his next target in the final. He easily defeated Alexander with a nine-point lead of 15-6 points. Baldini’s final opponent, Kruse conquered the semi-final over Russian Artem Sedov. Kruse was the only fencer who had
the calibre to give a tough time to the champion Baldini.
The match was tied after the nine minutes with 14-14 touches. Referee gave additional one minute that took the victory for Baldini after the final score. The crowd finally gave a standing applause to the Italian for his feat and amazing set of fencing skills.
Few minutes after winning the tournament, Baldini commented, "I am very happy. In recent months, I have worked a lot with my teacher, Paolo Paoletti, and I began to feel a good feeling on stage. I knew that sooner or later would come back to win. It’s a
success, which I dedicate to my girlfriend, Beatrice, who helped me, not to lose confidence in my abilities."
Kruse came second and was given a silver medal while Alexander and Sedov took the bronze medals.
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