Mariel Zagunis secures second place in New York World Cup in Women’s Sabre
The two-time Olympic Champion, Mariel Zagunis, who is currently ranked first in the Sabre World Ranking, captured silver medal during 2011 New York World Cup for Women’s Sabre on June 26. She was placed at the second spot in the competition.
Zagunis started her direct elimination round from the table of 64, as the number one seed. She took her opening victory against the Japanese, Seira Nakayama, with 15-7 touches and advanced to the table of 32. After defeating the Ukrainians, Alina Komashuk
and Galyna Pundyk, Zagunis qualified for the quarter-final level where she faced the German, Anna Limbach. A 15-12 score’s victory over Anna brought her to the semi-final round. In semi-final, Zagunis opponent was 2007 senior world medallist, Bogna Jozwaik,
from Poland. It was another easy victory by the Olympic Champion, Zagunis against Bogna, as Zagunis dropped her with an early 15-8 score.
In the final, Zagunis could not stand against her last opponent, Russian Sophia Velikaia, and lost her bout with 6-15 of scores in the final. Zagunis commented on her loss, ”I shouldn’t have gone so fast. I should have slowed down the bout and thought more
during the finals. She was getting a lot of easy touches that I was just giving to her instead of slowing down and really thinking about it and changing the pace. But that’s how it is. Fencing goes fast and it’s tough mentally and I just wasn’t quite there.”
Zagunis ended the Individual event of Women’s Sabre in 2011 New York World Cup with a silver medal. She said on her silver medal victory that she was satisfied with her performance overall. She was proud of what she performed. Zagunis also stated that she
had performed in the current season better than before so she was happy on that.
The Olympic Champion further said that she enjoyed while playing with well-known faces. Although Zagunis got a second place in the competition, but still she gained enough points which she will obviously need in order to lead in the overall world rankings
in Women’s Sabre category.
Tags: