Before the final day of the European Fencing Championship in Düsseldorf, Russians were confidently leading the medal table, ahead of France and Italy for two gold awards, which were won the day before. Thanks to the stock of silver, one of these two countries could still climb into first place, provided that the Russians did not qualify for the finals of the last two types of program - team tournaments in men's saber and women's sword.
In the middle of the day, the French dropped out of the struggle for victory in the medal standings. Their saber players were unable to go beyond the quarter-finals, giving up five touches to the Germans. At the same time, the Italian teams made their way into the semifinals and could still move the Russians in theory, but they failed on both fronts. And in the sword Italy was defeated by just Russian athletes.
This type of weapon in the first days of the European Championship seemed completely unhappy for the Russians. What men, what women could not reach at least the quarterfinals. The best result among the girls was shown by Violetta Kolobova, who lost one shot to Frenchwoman Marie-Florance Kandassami in the 1/8 final. But the men were then able to fully rehabilitate themselves in the team tournament and win gold. The women's team tried to do the same.
Kolobova, in company with Lyubov Shutova, Tatyana Andryushina and Violetta Hrapina, started the second way for the medals with a meeting with Czech women in the 1/8 final. In several duels, the girls could not make the required number of shots in the three minutes allotted, but Kolobova tried to make sure that the Russians won an early victory. She scored 25 points out of 45 possible.
In the next match with the Ukrainians, Kolobova was less active, and this allowed her rivals to possess a slight advantage for a long time. But when it came time for the leader of the Russian team to fence against the 2012 Olympic champion Yana Shemyakina, she showed her class and won the mini-match with a score of 11: 7. The total score was 35:31 in favor of the Russians.
The already mentioned match with the Italians initially developed successfully for domestic swordsmen. If, following the results of the first four fights, they were inferior to one injection, then for one more same segment they received an advantage of seven points. Kolobova only had to calmly otzaschisitsya in a duel with the little-known Italian Alice Klerichi, who had time to make only one successful injection. However, she was not going to give up. The less time left before the end, the more often the Italian threw herself into the attacks and brought them to the injection. Two seconds before turning off the Clerici chronometer, it was even possible to level the score. But Kolobova did make a “golden shot” and led the Russian team to the final.
The fight for gold unfolded with Polish fencers. Each match took place in an extremely careful struggle, and none of the opponents could not earn an advantage in more than two injections.
By the final duel Kolobova with the bronze medalist of the personal tournament Eva Trzhebinskoy account was only 19:19. A draw between them was impossible, and the victory with a margin of one shot was won by the Polish team, which this season has already won two stages of the World Cup.
As for the men's saber, the Russians were clear favorites for the team tournament, if only because Benjamin Reshetnikov and Camille Ibrahimov three days earlier had fought for gold in their personal finals. However, in Düsseldorf, no one and the victors of the first days later could not celebrate a second victory.
In relation to Russian saber, this trend also worked. In the quarter-finals they lost to the Romanians who were not starring from the sky. The rivals were leading throughout the match, but in the final duel session Dmitry Danilenko was able to reduce the backlog from eight points to two, and Reshetnikov brought the team forward at all. But the experienced Tiberiu Dolnichanu then left no chance to Ibrahimov. The saber players turned out to be the only Russian team that did not make it to the semifinals of the European Championship.
In the consolation tournament, the Russians failed to take fifth place. Meeting with the French, who were also unlucky in the quarterfinals, turned into a collapse for Reshetnikov and Konstantin Lohanov, who replaced Ibrahimov. When it was their turn to fence the second time, they both couldn’t make a single touch, letting the French go 11 points ahead. As a result, the Russian team took the sixth place and scored a lot less points in the qualifying ranking for the Olympics than it could.
The Russian fencing team won the European Championships in the medal standings, but won fewer victories than a year ago in competitions in Serbia. Then six golden medals conquered the swordworkers, rapier and saber players. This time, the Russians found four gold, three silver and two bronze medals. In less than a month, fencers will meet again in Budapest at the World Championships, where there will be even more serious competitors.