USA results for the Foil Grand Prix and the Sabre England Cup – Fencing Recap
The Foil Grand Prix and the Sabre World Cup events were held this past week. The Foil Grand Prix was conducted in Gdansk, Poland on February 25th to the 26th, as the Sabre World Cup was held in London on February 27, 2011. Friday was
the successful day for United State Team, as almost all of the fencers amazingly qualified for the round of 64 that was to be taken place on Saturday.
Lee Kiefer, a U.S foil fencer, was automatically advanced to round of 64 of the tournament as the number 16 seed in foil grand prix. Kiefer from Lexington is a 2010 Cadet World Champion. Margaret Lu also qualified for the table of 64 as the 23rd
seed after winning all of the six bouts of elimination round. Doris Willette from California advanced as the 27th seed and Ambika Singh of New Jersey qualified as the 29th seed after winning the five bouts of initial round. Emily Cross
and Nzingha Prescod both from New York also qualified for the table of 64 bouts after winning four bouts in the initial pools. Cross defeated Poland’s Karolina Chlewinska and advanced to 58th seed while Prescod defeated Anita Blaze in the round
of 128 with amazing 15-6 touches. New Yorker Nicole Ross said bye in the table of 128 and advanced forward after the victory in five bouts. Only Adrienne Nott of New York could not advance to the next due to a loss in the pool 1-5.
In the table of 64 Kiefer defeated Melanie Grube of Hungary by 9-8. Only Kiefer qualified for the quarter-final but could not defeat Valentina Vezzali to qualify for the semi-final. Vezzali won from her by 15-4 touches. Lu, Willette, Cross and Prescod could
not win at the table of 64. Singh defeated the Russian Victoria Kozyreva by 12-11, but lost at the 32 from Arianna Errigo by 15-5 points. Kiefer and Singh were ranked at 12th and 23rd respectively at Poland Foil Grand Prix.
In the England Women’s Sabre World Cup, Mariel Zagunis, New Jersey natives Dagmara Wozniak, Celina Merza, Monica Aksamit, Ibtihaj Muhammad, and New Yorkers Daria Schneider and Aziza Hassan qualified for the table of 64. Merza, Schneider and Hassan could
not qualify for the table of 32 due to their loss. Ibtihaj defeated Germany’s Sibylle Klemm at the table of 64 by 15-7, but lost from Kharlan Olga at the table of 32. Wozniak played a very tough match against the Russian Anna Illarionova and won by 15-14.
In next round she found no difficulty in defeating Reka Peto of Hungary with amazing 15-3 touches, but she was unable to qualify for the quarter-final as she lost her table 16 match from the Russian Ekaterina Diatchenko by 15-10.
The Two time Olympic Champion Zagunis won all the tables easily to qualify for the quarter-final. Here she got an easy victory by 15-9 against Ekaterina, as she could not win semi-final against the Italian Gioia Marzocca and lost after a tough match of 15-12.
Zagunis and Wozniak were ranked at 4th and 14th respectively. It was an amazing tournament as the American fencers fully capitalised and showed their dominance.
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