Translated material
Non-Olympic program
The Russians were left without awards in men's foil and women's epee
Russian fencers were left without medals on the second day of the Old World Championships taking place in the Belgian city of Ghent. Awards were awarded in individual competitions among epee fencers and foil fencers. The best results among our compatriots were shown by two-time Olympic champion Tatyana Logunova, Andrey Deev and Renal Ganeev, who reached the quarterfinal stage.It is the men's foil and women's epee, as team competitions, that are not included in the program of the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. As you know, fencing competitions are now held in a dozen disciplines (epee, foil, saber for men and women in team and individual competitions), and the International Olympic Committee is forced to select from them, on a rotation basis, only a dozen types of programs solely in order not to exceed the limit of competition participants established by the IOC.
In this light, the results of completed tournaments in these types of programs do not have tragic significance. Two representatives from each country in the individual events of men's foil and women's epee will be able to get to Beijing, and this task will not become a problem for our best athletes in these disciplines.
The performance of foil players in Ghent was commented on by the senior coach of the Russian men's national team for this type of weapon, Dmitry Shevchenko. “Our guys seemed to show good results in the playoff matches and fencing with dignity, losing mostly only to the grandees, but... If we talk about the debutants of tournaments of this rank, Cheremisinov and Khovansky, they were able to demonstrate almost their entire arsenal and showed good psychological attitude,” Shevchenko said. - There is ambition, a desire to fence, and, despite the competition with people from the elite, they showed the maximum of what they are capable of. It was clearly evident that they were not so easy to defeat. As for the team’s record leaders, the more experienced Andrey Deev and Renal Ganeev, they, unfortunately, lost their last matches more in tactical terms. And it is in this aspect that we will analyze the failure that occurred. Not in the sense that we will blame the guys for defeats, but simply show them the right path for the future. In fact, in these lost battles they were, figuratively speaking, breaking into closed doors. Deev and Ganeev, in principle, never used the techniques that we developed in training against specific opponents. In my opinion, the essence of fighting in fencing is the need to catch a certain tactical thread and spin it in the right direction. The guys were looking for this thread in absolutely the wrong place, and in the end it was never found in the quarterfinal meetings with the Italians.”
In the semi-final battle of the men's foil, Italian Andrea Baldini defeated Alexey Cheremisinov's offender, Frenchman Erwan La Pechu, with a score of 15:12. German Benjamin Kleibrink prevailed over fencer from the Apennine Peninsula Salvatore Sanso - 15:11. In the fight for the European champion title, Baldini turned out to be stronger than Kleibrink, securing a symbolic advantage of a couple of hits - 15:13.
Among the girls' epee fencers, our Logunova lost to Swede Emma Samuelsson in the quarterfinals - 12:15. An athlete from Scandinavia met with Estonian Inna Embrich in the semi-finals and beat the Baltic fencer with a large margin of safety - 15:11. Frenchwoman Laura Flessel beat German Britta Heidemann - 15:9. In the fight for the title, Flessel did not allow the fencer from Sweden to join the list of sensations of the current championship and beat Samuelsson with a difference of two points - 15:13.
By the way, the new silver medalist of the 2007 European Championship, Scandinavian Samuelsson, is a student of Russian specialist Igor Chikinev. Our coaches now work in a number of other European teams. It is no coincidence that one of the main ideas of the current head of the Russian Fencing Federation, Alisher Usmanov, is to unite and return to their homeland the best domestic mentors in this sport scattered around the world, who could benefit our fencing masters.
Today the most interesting and intriguing part of the championship begins - team tournaments. Saber fencers and foil fencers will compete for medals in the competition between national teams on the fourth day of the competition.