The first day of the fencing competition did not bring medals to the Russian national team, but on the second day this situation could not repeat itself.
The Sunday program included a personal women's foil tournament, and this type of weapon is sometimes worthy of comparisons with rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming.
Suffice it to say that the Russian team was staffed exclusively by the reigning world champions. Adelina Zagitullina and Larisa Korobeinikova won the team tournament two years ago, and Inna Deriglazova won individual competitions. In addition, it is she who owns the gold medal of the Rio Olympics and leadership in the world rankings this season. If there was a slightly more successful draw in Tokyo, then the girls could dream of taking the podium together.
All the girls went through the first round in one breath. Deriglazova defeated the Polish woman Martin Jelinska with a score of 15: 8, Zagidullina also left a few points to the representative of Colombia Saskia van Erven. Korobeinikova got a pretty solid rival - the current bronze medalist Iness Bubaki from Tunisia, who took away a medal from Aida Shanaeva in Rio. But their fight turned into an empty formality - the Russian woman missed only three injections.
Perhaps this helped Korobeinikova to maintain her strength for an even more formidable opponent. Frenchwoman Isaora Tibu is in the top three of the world rankings and has a scattering of world championship awards, but she never climbed the Olympic podium, even with the team. Now she will have to wait for the home Games to fill this gap. Korobeinikova immediately set a high pace for the fight and took the lead with a score of 7: 3. Chibu was able to close the gap, but the Russian woman staged another series of five attacks in a row, which was not followed by a new chase.
Still, there were some losses in the 1/8 finals. While Deriglazova was warming up in a meeting with the Hungarian Fanny Kreiss, Zagidullina met unexpected resistance from the Canadian Kelly Ryan. The 34-year-old athlete is known in the fencing world for the fact that in her collection there are 14 silver awards from the American championships and not a single gold one. Ryan withstood the start of the onslaught of the Russian woman and continued to gain one point after another herself. As a result, she prevailed with a score of 15: 9.
Korobeinikova immediately had a chance to avenge her teammate, only Ryan was not enough for one sensation.
Once again, she had an amazing second period and took the lead with a score of 9: 4.
But the Russian woman was not embarrassed by such a development of events.
She accomplished a real feat, having managed to score the 11 points necessary to win, while she herself gave only two.
Deriglazova by that time beat the 37-year-old Korean woman Chung Hee Suk with another humiliating score 15: 7.
As in Rio, two Russian foil fencers reached the semifinals, only now they did not need to fence with each other.
Deriglazova, for her part, tried to make the final look purely Russian.
She finally got a worthy rival in the face of the 2018 world champion Alice Volpi.
The Olympic champion immediately provided a backlog of five points and kept it until the end of the bout.
In another semifinal, Korobeinikova met with American Lee Kiefer, and in this duel a real disaster occurred. The athlete from the United States gave an incredible series of seven injections in a row, and when the Russian woman stopped her, she carried out three more attacks. For another heroic comeback, now from a score of 2:11, Korobeinikov did not have enough, and even before the expiration of the first period, she went to prepare for the bronze medal match.
It was extremely important for Volpi to win at least a bronze - since 1992, Italy has necessarily received an Olympic medal in the women's foil. But Korobeinikova also did not want to miss the chance to part with the reputation of an exclusively command swordsman. Rapid attacks, which in a meeting with Kiefer only led to retaliatory injections, this time gave an excellent result. If the judge did not reward the Russian woman for her activity, then after the video views, she still took her points. Volpi fought to the last and came close to the medal, having recouped from a score of 10:13, but the ending remained with Korobeinikova.
How easily Kiefer defeated the future bronze winner did not become a warning for Deriglazova.
The Russian woman in the same way possessed the initiative and went into battle herself, but what she did in previous matches was no longer useful.
Kiefer again and again turned the attacks of the Russians against her.
The Olympic champion did not allow herself to lose in whole series, but she never came forward.
When she was on the verge of defeat, she managed to win back only one point instead of the required three.
Deriglazova and Korobeinikova brought the Russian team the fifth and sixth medals of the Tokyo Olympics.
For the first time, two domestic foil fencers managed to get on the podium at once, albeit not on the highest step.
But they will still have such a chance in the team tournament, where the chance for a rematch with Kiefer will be quite real.