Chen & Marton win last individual titles

The 2014 Cadet and Junior World Championships continued on Tuesday, 8^th April, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria with the preliminary stages of the last individual Junior events – Men’s Foil and Women’s Sabre.  With each event split over two days, thirty-two fencers in each event progressed through to the second day of the tournament.

Junior Men’s Foil

A total of 132 entries included three entries from Great Britain.  Kristjan Archer (V5D0), James Brosnan (V3D3) and George Hendrie (V2D4) all progressed to the elimination round of 128.  Archer earned a bye but Dahlin (DEN) defeated Brosnan 15-11 and Leung (HKG) beat Hendrie 15-11.  In the round of 64, Archer faced Berg (DEN) and lost 15-13 ending British interest in the event.

In the first semi-final, most people’s favourite for the title and last year’s champion, Alexander Massialas (USA), fell 11-6 behind to Haiwei Chen (CHN) at the first break.  He was unable to recover as Chen went on to a well-deserved 15-9 win.  The second semi-final saw Alexander Choupenitch (CZE) wow the crowd with a spectacular display of foil fencing to go 10-0 up over Toshiya Saito (JPN).  He went on to win 15-3.

The final started with a light-hearted moment as both fencers thought that they had hit and turned screaming with delight only to see that there were no lights on the box.  The packed audience erupted with laughter joined immediately by both fencers.  When the fight got back under way it was explosive.  Chen led 4-3 within a minute but what was telling was that Choupenitch has already used up both of his video referrals.  Chen built on his lead, taking it to 8-4 but the fencer from the Czech Republic was unhappy about many of the calls from the referee.  With the referee calling the hits consistently Choupenitch did not change what he was doing and Chen capitalized by landing his attacks.  At 12-6 to Chen, Choupenitch began to miss and the Chinese fencer ran away with the World Championship title 15-6.

GB placing: Archer 33^rd, Brosnan 78^th & Hendrie 91^st.

Full results here.

Junior Women’s Sabre

There were two British entries in this event as Kate Daykin and Aliya Itzkowitz formed part of the field of 93.  Daykin (V1D5) did not make the first round cut but Itzkowitz (V4D2) progressed with a bye through the incomplete round of 128.  In the 64 she fell 8-2 behind by the break and despite a gutsy comeback lost 15-11 to Ciaraglia (ITA).

Both semi-finals were intramural affairs with Anna Marton (HUN) taking on Luca Laszlo (HUN) and Sage Palmedo (USA) up against Gracie Stone (USA).  Marton led her countryman 8-4 at the break and went on to win 15-5 with a dominant attacking display.  It was much the same in the second semi-final as Palmedo led 8-4 at the break.  However it was a brave fight from Stone who was carrying a hip injury but in the end she lost 15-10.

In the final Anna Marton came out strong and showed a great amount of variety to lead 8-2 at the break.  Palmedo performed much better after the break but Marton mixed long attacks with a lightening fast parry riposte to become the 2014 World Champion 15-8.

GB placings: Itzkowitz 34^th & Daykin 75^th.

Full results here.

With the individual events now over the team competition starts tomorrow with the Junior Women’s Foil and Men’s Sabre tournaments.