| Victory in Bourges requires more than just skill In the small French town of Bourges, the entire population of which could fit in the bowl of the Moscow Luzhniki Stadium, the European Fencing Championship has begun. The first days were successful for the Russian team, receiving a gold, two silver and a bronze medals. The champion was 22-year-old Muscovite Olympic champion Tatyana Logunova, who won the epee competition. It's her birthday this week and this award was the perfect gift for the upcoming holiday.
Tatyana simply brilliantly played the decisive matches, leaving no chance for Jutta Hoffmann (Germany) - 15:7, Ildiko Mintse (Hungary) - 15:9, and in the final she overpowered the unyielding Estonian Marika Vosu - 15:12.
Our saber fencers take away two medals at once, silver and bronze. However, Natalya Makeeva had a great chance to win a medal made of a more expensive metal than silver. In the final against Italian Ilaria Bianco, she led 8:3, but lost all the advantage and eventually lost - 11:15. And Elena Nechaeva, who lost to Makeeva in the semi-finals, will take home the bronze award.
“The season turned out to be very difficult,” Makeeva said after the final match. - There are many tournaments, individual and team, in which you have to participate, since their results are used to qualify for the Olympics. Of course, fatigue accumulates. But when you win something, strength comes from somewhere again, and you don’t even remember how hard it was.”
In the epee competition, the final was a repeat of last year, when our Pavel Kolobkov and Hungarian Gabor Bozhko fought at the continental championship in Moscow. Then the Hungarian fencer won. And now he was able to deliver two more injections than Kolobkov - 14:12 and become the European champion for the second year in a row.
However, it is unknown how this fight would have ended if not for the terrible conditions in which the tournament was held. The heat and stuffiness make even watching the fights difficult. Can you imagine what it’s like for the athletes in their masks and thick fencing suits? Naturally, the younger Bozhko had an advantage over the 34-year-old Kolobkov.
It is strange why in France, considered the birthplace of fencing, they could not create normal conditions for holding the European Championship. Even the usually correct President of the European Fencing Federation, Hungarian Ene Kamuti, did not spare the feelings of the hosts and called the organization of the tournament simply weak. Sergey ZAYTSEV, Burj |
|
