Gauthier Grumier (FRA) headed to the piste with a 2 point lead over Hungary in the last bout of the gold medal match. He went on to score the first 3 points of the bout over Gabor Boczko (HUN) en route to an 8-2 bout to give France the World Championship, 45-37 over Hungary.
In the quarter-finals France defeated Germany 45-41 then Korea 45-31 to advance to the gold medal bout.
Korea faced Switzerland in the bronze medal bout. The match was slow going with the first touch being scored in the 4th bout. The match finally got going in the 6th bout of the match with a 7-5 score to put Korea up by one. In the final bout Max Heinzer (SUI) went 5-3 over Jin Sun Jung (KOR) to win the bronze in a 15-14 team match.
The United States started out with a 14-13 overtime win over 35th seed Portugal. They then faced the Swiss team whose strategy seemed to be to give all of the work to Heinzer. The strategy paid off as Heinzer went 8-9 against Ben Bratton and then 16-10 against Seth Kelsey in the final bout. Down 22-19 with under a minute to go, Kelsey was forced to rush and the US fell 31-26.
In placement rounds the US suffered losses to Poland (45-40) and Egypt (45-34) and ended the day with a 45-26 win over Estonia for 15th place.
Russia Golden in Women’s Sabre
If foil is the weapon of Italy, then sabre belongs to Russia. The Russian women’s team matched the men’s team accomplishment by winning the Women’s Team Sabre World Championship with a 45-43 victory over the Ukraine.
The gold medal match went back and forth and looked to be breaking the Ukraine’s way once Olga Kharlan (UKR) went 7-3 against Ekaterina Diatchenko (RUS) to put Ukraine up by 2. Sophia Velikaia (RUS) responded for Russia with a 7-1 spanking of Galyna Pundyk (UKR) to break open the match for Russia. The Russian women won their next two bouts and left Velikaia up by 5 touches going into the last bout. At 44-39, Kharlan began to make a come back and scored 4 straight touches to bring the score to 44-43, but Velikaia scored on the next point to give Russia the gold.
The United States won bronze with a 45-40 victory over Azerbaijan. The US lost in the semi-finals 45-33 to Russia. Earlier in the day the US earned wins over Tunisia (45-35) and Italy (45-43).
