Sheng Lei (CHN) attacks Andrea Baldini (ITA) in the Men's Foil Team Final
Sheng Lei (left) had Andrea Baldini (right, ITA) on the ropes as he led China to a World Championship. Photo S.Timacheff/FencingPhotos.com

China showed that they not only have the skill, but the mental fortitude to defeat the world’s best as they came from a 7 point deficit to defeat Italy 45-43 for the Men’s Team Foil World Championship.

The Italian team of Andrea Baldini, Andrea Cassara and Valerio Aspromonte started out slowly against the Chinese team of Jun Zhu, Sheng Lei, and Liangcai Huang with the score at 5-4 after the first two bouts of the match.  Cassara edged Italy’s early lead with a 9-5 bout over Huang followed shortly by a 6-3 bout by Baldini to put Italy up by 7.

In the second half of the match the Chinese fencers chipped away at Italy’s lead, leaving Italy up by 4 in the final bout between Lei and Baldini.  Lei went on a 4-0 run to tie the score at 41-41 and then gave China the lead at 43-42.

The United States team of Gerek Meinhardt, Miles Chamley-Watson, Kurt Getz, and Alex Massialas came into the team event with high expectations.  Meinhardt had won the bronze medal in the individual event and Chamley-Watson placed 5th.  They stumbled early to the team from Great Britain who, despite the loss of their top fencer Richard Kruse, defeated the US 45-36.

In placement rounds the US posted victories against Hungary (45-30), Belarus (45-36) and Poland (45-43).  The US team placed 9th for the day.

In the bronze medal bout Japan used a 13-7 bout by Yuki Ota over Artem Sedov to get back into their match with Russia.  Ota closed out the match with an 8-6 score over Alexey Cheremisinov to give Japan the 45-42 victory.

In the Team Wheelchair Epee events, Hong Kong won the Women’s Team Epee championship 45-23 over Poland.  The US did not field a team

In the Men’s Epee wheelchair team event the United States Team (Ken Mc Gaha, Ryan Estep, Joseph Brison) lost their opening match against Belarus 45-14, then lost placement matches to Thailand and Germany to take 14th.

The gold medal bout pitted the #1 and #2 teams against each other as France defeated Poland 45-37.

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2 Comments

  • kit, November 11, 2010 @ 10:37 pm

    Once again, the Italiens proved themselves to be the asses they are always portrayed to be.
    As if the name-calling, the rude gestures, the snappy comments weren´t enough—-but no…..the babies couldn´t just accept that they got their asses served to them.

    China all the way.

    Italy——you sore losers. Serves you right.

  • Tanenghok, April 4, 2011 @ 2:39 am

    Go China…

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