Leverkusen club clinch gold medal in both Women's and Men's Epee of German Championship 2011
Leverkusen club got lucky to take home the titles of both the Individual Epee competitions in the 2011 German SAMSUNG Individual and Team Championship that took place on April 16, at the Olympic Training Centre, Tauberbischofsheim in Germany.
The event comprise of Individual and Team Epee Championship played in both men and women disciplines at the venue.
The former Olympic Champion, Britta Heidemann, took part for the third time in this National Championship and made it all the way through the finals. The last four attempts ended up in a failure in the final round, but this time the 28-year-old was
destined to take up the winning title.
She bypassed the knock-out rounds and directly stepped into the direct elimination rounds and proved herself well in comparison to her opponents. She fought a head-to-head battle against Marijana Markovic from Leverkusen Club and took up the winning
point at 11-10, qualifying into the semi-finals. There she met Bonn’s strongest contender, Imke Duplitzer, and managed to finally beat her down at 9-7 score win.
In the final round, after almost one year Britta came face-to-face with the last year’s National Champion, Beate Christmann, from FC TBB club.
With the previous year’s defeat from Christmann at 15-10, it was time for Heidemann to settle a win. Both had a cut-throat fight where they ended up equal at 5-5 with a time-out call.
However, Britta came back in the sudden-death round by winning the decider point at 6-5, clinching the National Title for the first time.
With victory in hand Britta said, "Today I felt more focused than in the previous weeks. Now I am much stronger in the Olympic qualifiers."
The bronze medal was awarded to Imke Duplitzer from Bonn and Maria Hugas-Mallorqui from Heidelberg, both sharing the third seed of the German Nationals.
On the other hand, her male club counterpart, Christoph Kneip, also secured a gold win for his club in the National Championship.
Along with Kneip, another veteran player Joerg Fiedler from Leipzig qualified for the final round after defeating Falk Spautz from WMTV Solingen by 15-13 score points.
Previously, Fiedler had a head-to-head battle with his international team-mate, Stefan Launer, representing Böblingen, securing a quarter-final win with a narrowly escaped 15-14 score-point difference.
This 2002 and 2009 German Champion gave a tough fight to his Leverkusen's opponent. Finally, Kneip managed a win with a 15-12 score gap by the end of the final bout, winning himself the gold title of the national championship for the first time.
"For me, the title was important. I have to clarify that I belong in the team. Although we are not with the team at this Olympics, but since there is also a European and World Championship ahead. And I want to be in the team, “added Kneip happily.
The bronze medal was shared between the two Norman Ackermann from Leverkusen and Falk Spautz from Solingen.
Team competition in Men’s and Women’s Epee was held the same day, on April 16, in which a total of 34 teams took part, 20 in Men’s Epee Team and 14 in Women’s Epee team.
In Men’s Epee Team competition, the Leverkusen team had a cut-throat with the Heidenheim Club team in the finals, but failed to clinch gold by just one point at 34-35, securing a silver win.
On the contrary, the female counter-parts of Leverkusen disappointingly lost to qualify into the final round by a single point at 29-30 against the Bonn club. However, they proved successful in the third-position battle and defeated Offenbach by 45-36
score difference.
Tags: