By the final day of the World Fencing Championship, the Russian team came up as a leader in the medal standings of the tournament. The victory of the rapirist Inna Deriglazova in her personal tournament and the triumph of the Russian women in the team tournament, as well as the scattering of silver and bronze medals allowed the French and South Koreans to be ahead, with two gold each.
The latest types of programs that could affect the final balance of power were team tournaments in the women's saber and the male foil. Personal competitions in these types of weapons have already brought medals to Russian athletes - Sophia the Great became a silver medalist, and Dmitry Zherebchenko took bronze.
In the first rounds of the playoffs, the Russian team showed a very stable fencing. It cost Great or Yane Yegoryan to start a fight, as their partners no longer had to recoup and score more than five points. So the meetings with the teams of Georgia, Azerbaijan and China took place, as a result of which the Russians went quietly to the semifinals.
Only after that the girls started the first difficulties. The next opponent was the Russian team of Italy. Of all the countries that can be attributed to the superpowers of the world of fencing, only the Italians did not have a single gold in this world championship. Although in the women's saber, the Italians are not permanent favorites, their motivation to continue the fight made the Russians to make every effort to reach the final.
After Egoryan's victory in the start round, Italian swordsmen won the next three matches, widening the gap in their favor to five points. For the swift feminine saber, such a gap represented a certain danger. But Olga Nikitina, a debutant of the World Championships, stepped in for the domestic team on time. In a fight with Rosella Gregorio, she won with a score of 10: 3, returning the advantage to the Russian women.
The Great immediately secured the leadership, winning the duel against Irene Vekka. Gregorio finally tried to correct herself and inflicted nine great shots, but that was enough to score only five points for a total victory, which the vice-world champion of Budapest did - 45:37.
Russian sablistiki reached the final, as well as in previous days it was done by rapirist and swordwoman. For the second time in the history of women's fencing, teams from one country managed to get into fights for gold in all three types of weapons. The last time this, too, sought Russian - in 2001.
# Budapest2019 South Africa medal of women's team saber!
Won has won a record 7 world titles in this event. They have been in silver since their first medal since winning the world title in 2015. # fencing # roadtotokyo # 1yeartogopic.twitter.com/cyNLMa0wW5
In the decisive battle of the Russians, the French waited, in the semifinals, they defeated the Korean women. Having defeated them, Russian sablists could not only take revenge for last year's defeat, but also bring the national team victory in the medal standings. In the first round, the Great failed to take over Manon Brunet, but Nikitina led the team forward, albeit with a one-shot advantage. To develop success was Egoryan’s task, which she coped with.
Although in her second bout, the Olympic champion slowed down a bit and gave a few points earned by her friends, in the eighth round Egoryan made five shots in a row at Brune. As a result, the Great could fence against the leader of the French team, Cecilia Berde, with a six-point reserve and calmly inflict a golden injection.
With the three gold, three silver and one bronze medals, the Russian team showed the best result at one world championship in the last four years. In 2015, in competitions in Moscow, Russian women managed to win one more victory.
The team of rapier players could replenish the common piggy bank, but their tournament did not work out very well, although they started the competitions even more confidently than sablistka. In none of the bouts with Puerto Rico, Ukraine and South Korea, they missed more than 30 shots, although the team was not helped by the bronze medalist of the World Championship Dmitry Zherebchenko.
Long Timur Safin, Alexei Cheremisinov and Timur Arslanov could not manage on their own. In the semifinal match with the US team, none of them managed to make a significant contribution to the overall success. Only once Arslanov managed to win his mini-duel, in all the other bouts the Russians either lost or agreed to a draw. Now, with difficulty, they scored 30 shots on the team and went to fight for the bronze.
Meeting in the fight for third place with the Italian national team was not the best gift to complete the tournament. Italians, losing to the French in the semifinals, for the first time since 1987 were left without a single victory at the World Championships. They could only defend their honor if they were ahead of the Russians in the total number of awards. By that time, representatives of both countries were noted seven times in the medal table, and the winner of the bronze match in the men's foil would have won by this indicator.
The first three rounds did not bring any clarity to the outcome of the meeting - the Italians won this segment with a score of 15:14. Then Safin missed five unanswered injections from Alessi Foconi, but Cheremesinov managed to score 11 points and return the leadership to the Russian team.
When Safin was decided to be replaced by Zherebchenko, and he worthily held the final match, there was another weak link in the team. Arslanov scored only two points in his last two battles with the Italians, and Cheremesinov had to win Danielle Garozzo for 15 minutes in the final round in some way for three minutes. For rapiristov this is an impossible task. Bronze medals went to the Italians, and the Russians took a step back compared to the previous World Cup.
In the finals of the team-captain, the US team won their first gold in the tournament, confidently defeating the French - 45:32, and exchanging last year's silver for the highest standard.