US Men's Foil: 8th in Paris. Germany wins key team match.

[Craig]

http://www.fencing101.com/content/view/130/2/

Analysis of the implications for Olympic qualification. The last European slot will be close.

[The0ne]

wow Europe is really close. . . I'm kind of suprised that Germany beat Italy, the Italian team is just so strong. . .

[labouche]

You just wait, France in gonna win the olympics! It may not look that way now but with me cheering for them, they can't go wrong.

[veeco]

I was really impressed by the South Korean team. They fenced really well and beat some strong teams in their bracket for the 5th place.

As it stands now, France isn't going to win the gold in Athens. The Italian team defeated them easily. And the French team didn't seem in top shape in their match against China. They need to get in better shape if they want to hold on to their 4th spot and win a medal in Athens.

Italy lost to Germany in the team event, but in the last bout of this match, it was Wessels against Ramacci, who is arguably not the best finisher for Italy. They were using Sanzo all the time until the final bout. I guess Sanzo having fenced all his bouts on Sunday (he won the individual event) was too tired to finish, so they put Ramacci. Before the last encounter, Italy was leading 40-38, despite a great comeback by Bissdorf. Then Wessels came back to 40-40 and took the lead 44-43. Italy came back to 44-44, and Wessels scored on a crazy wild move. I'd say if it had been the Olympics, Italy would have won this event.

[edew]

And who is this Moltchan guy from Russia? Mediocre seeding into the top-64, then kicks some German 4$$. Not bad.

[veeco]

Didn't see him fence in the individual, but I heard that he did quite a show. In the top 16 he defeated Jerome Jault 15-14, one of the last French fencers still fencing at this point, and in front of a crowd of 4000 people (most of them rooting for the French), after scoring the final touch he did a little bit of moonwalking on the strip.

[edew]

So what is he, a former cosmonaut or something?

[veeco]

I don't know, but I also heard that he schooled Sanzo in the beginning of the final bout. I think at one point he was leading 10-4, pretty much all of Sanzo's attacks were failing miserably against him. Then Sanzo found an opening and came back up to win.

[nahouw]

Originally posted by veeco

Italy lost to Germany in the team event, but in the last bout of this match, it was Wessels against Ramacci, who is arguably not the best finisher for Italy. They were using Sanzo all the time until the final bout.

It is all part of the Italian program -- which the USA might learn some lessons, if they even had somebody to watch, understand and learn from other successful countries.

Italy did what it needed to do to get to the gold medal bout -- they didn't care of the final finish; it was probably good enough to qualify them to the Olympics anyway!! So they substituted in a younger fencer to give him the experience of the pressure, which would help develop him for the future.

Same as for women's épée team in Budapest (Italy will most likely not qualify a team, and Cascioli is probably the only fencer that will qualify individually) -- Cascioli and a bunch of juniors were on the team, saving Uga and Rossi for the indivdual competition. The juniors get good experience, Cristiana gets good pressure experience to carry the team, Uga and Rossi are fresh for the individuals. There is a method to the Italian system, and perhaps the USA can learn from it -- even for a competition like in Aqaba -- for women's foil, there is not an Olympic event, but still, the Italian federation sent 8 fencers -- their top 4 to keep the World Cup standings, and the next top 4 juniors to give them experience.

[veeco]

This is great when you have the possibility of doing this. I think that the problem with the US is that they have to pretty much struggle in all the weapons to get the Olympic qualification. In that context, every bout counts, and the difference between finishing 9th or 10th can be the difference between having a team in the OG or not.

On the other hand, I did see Steve Gerberman fence against Poland in the team event, so I think that there is some of this going on already. However since the US has a point system for selection I don't see how it would be possible to send juniors to senior world cups unless one of the seniors above them in the point list wouldn't go. That wouldn't be considered fair.