34 year old Valentina Vezzali became the first Italian to win three consecutive gold medals when she defeated Korea's Nam Hyunhee 6-5 in the gold medal match at the Beijing Fencing Hall. Fellow Italian Margherita Granbassi bested teammate and former world champion Giovanna Trillini 15-12 for the bronze.
An Olympics that saw significant upsets in the first two days of competition settled down today as all top 4 seeds advanced to the semifinal rounds in the women's foil competition in Beijing. In fact, all of the quarterfinal matches were decided by 5 or more points and Vezzali crushed 10th seed Knapek (HUN) 15-3.
Chinese fencer Wanwen Su took inspiration from a pumped up Chinese crowd and pulled off the upset of 7th ranked Emily Cross. Cross never seemed able to find the answer to the Chinese fencer's distance and fell 7-15. In other matches, Hanna Thompson fell to Caroline Golubitsky 13-5 and Erinn Smart lost to French fencing Corinne Maitrejean 15-9.
Hanna Thompson took her time and Erinn Smart charged ahead as both win their opening round matches at the Olympic Fencing Hall this morning in Beijing. Thompson opened the day for the US fencers with a slow and methodical bout against Algerian Anissa Khelfaqui.
Matteo Tagliariol (pictured, right) came into his first Olympics with dreams of being a modern day d'Artagnan and bringing home Italy's first gold medal in this event in 48 years. Fabrice Jeannet came to Beijing to best his 5th place finish in 2004 and secure his name among France's great fencers.
