Russia’s Fencers Stab Half Europe
Of 12 medal sets that were played over six days at the Senior Fencing European Championships in Izmir, Turkey, the team of Russia came the first in the setoff, having won five gold medals, a silver and three bronze medals.
For Russia, the obvious peculiarity of these championships was winning the better part of gold medals in the individual competitions. Moreover, all three champs of Europe - saber fencer Sofia Velikaya, saber fencer Alexey Yakimenko and foils fencer Yana Ruzavina - rose to the gold step of the victory rostrum for the first time. The result is even more marvelous, as Russia has had no gold in the European women’s individual foil championships since 1994.
Another good point is that all champs are a bit more than 20 years old, which is especially pleasing before the Beijing Olympics to be held in two years.
Sofia Velikaya has two gold medals actually. The second one was won in the team competitions, where she performed together with Yekaterina Fedorkina, Yelena Nechaeva and Yekaterina Diyachenko. Congratulations to the senior coach Dmitry Ronzhin for his perfect choice of the girls.
But the things were not so smooth in the men’s team. Despite individual leader Yakimenko and today’s most titled saber fencer Stanislav Pozdnyakov, the Russians yielded to Romania in the semifinals and got only bronze as a result.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 11, 2006
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