Italy’s women foilists outshine at the Seoul Grand Prix: Fencing News
The Seoul Women’s Foil Individual Grand Prix concluded yesterday, on May 22 at the Olympic Gymnasium in Seoul, Korea. Elissa Di Francisca and Arianna Errigo from Italy were the shine-outs at the South Korean Grand Prix, both competing in the finals for the
top two podium spots of the event.
The event had been organised by the Korean Fencing Federation (KFF), under the permission of the International Fencing Federation (FIE).
Both the fencers proved their strength in the prior rounds and managed to qualify in the finals, which was a huge achievement for Italy.
A similar scenario had previously taken place in the World Fencing Championships in Paris, held last year in November.
In this final bout, Francisca proved the stronger one with a single-handed defeat to her Italian mate Errigo by 15-8.
The gold-medal winner has a previous win record of second spot in the Grand Prix of Gdansk and third spot in the Turin and Shanghai.
On the other hand, the runner-up Arianna Errigo had returned from her ankle injury and made such a fine performance with third spot in the first Grand Prix of the season whereas second place in Gdansk and Turin.
Apart from these two, it was disappointing to find Valentina Vezzali lose in the quarter-finals by 15-13 from a French foilist, Maitrejean. She holds a previous record of top spots in the Gdansk and Turin Grand Prix.
Errigo made it into the finals after a confident defeat to the Chinese Chen by 15-9 after beating down the 2010 World Champion Maitrejean by 15-11 in the previous round.
The fencers to share the third podium spot of the Seoul Grand Prix were Maitrejean of France and China’s Chen.
On the other hand, the same city featured the World Cup of the Men’s Foil individuals and Team from May 20-22 and the winners were; in the Men’s Foil Individuals, Italy’s Andrea Baldini took the top spot followed by Great Britain’s Richard Kruse at the second
place. Moreover, the third spot was shared between USA’s Alexander Massialas and Russia’s Artem Sedov.
In Men’s Foil team competition, the top three places were taken by Italy, Russia and Japan, respectively.
Tags: