Fencing Webstream

Paolo Pizzo wins 3rd Gold Medal for Italy

October 12 2011, 6:45pm

Italy earned it's 3rd Gold Medal of the Worlds. Paolo Pizzo (ITA) was the 3rd Italian fencer to earn a gold medal at this years World Championships with his defeat of Bas Verwijlen (NED) 15-13 before a packed house in Catania, Italy. The Italian fencer started of the match behind 4-0 on Verwijlen, but fought back with 4 straight points of his own to tie the match at 4.  Pizzo would go ahead at 6-5 and end the first period up 8-5.  In the second period the two fencers fought touch for touch with Verwijlen baiting Pizzo’s attack and launching low counter-attacks which made the taller Dutch fencer look off balance even as he scored. With the score tied at 13-13 to start the 3rd period, Verwijlen gambled on a fast attack on Pizzo just 18 seconds into the period.  Pizzo was ready, however, and caught Verwijlen on the counter-attack to go up 14-13.  Pizzo would then follow up with an attack of his own just 5 seconds later to claim the 15-13 victory. US Top-16 Results Their finish keeps the Olympic dream alive for Thompson and Kelsey Two US fencers, Soren Thompson, and Seth Kelsey, earned top-16 results in the Men’s Epee event.  Thompson and Kelsey maintained their positions in the Adjusted Olympic Rankings.  Thompson currently sits in the top-12 automatic qualifiers for the Olympics and Kelsey holds the top Regional bid. Soren Thompson entered the day as the 61st seed but won his opening match against #4 Gabor Boczko (HUN) 15-9.  He then defeated Bartosz Piasecki (NOR) 15-8 before falling to Pizzo 15-9 in the round of 16. Kelsey missed out on a top-8 result when Nikolai Novosjolov (EST) fought back from a two touch deficit to tie their top-16 match at 7-7 with just a minute remaining.  At 20 seconds left a double-touch was scored bringing the score to 8-8 and then Novosjolov went up by 1 touch with just 4 seconds remaining.  Kelsey went for the equalizer but was unable to score and lost 10-8.  Earlier in the day Kelsey had defeated Yiu Chung Tsui (HKG), 13-7 and Dmitry Karuchenko (UKR), 7-6. Ben Bratton (USA) was looking to make an upset bid of his own, but fell in the opening round to Alfredo Rota (ITA) 15-14 in overtime.  Cody Mattern (USA) won his first match against Frederik Von Der Osten (DEN) 15-5 and lost in the 32 to Kyoung Doo Park (KOR) 5-1. Other fencers from the American zone currently up for Olympic qualification are Ruben Limardo (VEN) (a top-12) and Hugues Boisvert-Simard (CAN) (the regional #2 behind Kelsey.) New World #1 Ranking With the victory, Pizzo moves up from 11th in the world to claim the new #1 ranking.  Grumier, the former #1, fell to 7th in the rankings. US fencer Seth Kelsey also fell in the rankings, dropping to 18th while teammate Soren Thompson climbed to 10th. Final Results: 2011 Men’s Epee World Championship

Rank Name Nationality

1 PIZZO Paolo ITA

2 VERWIJLEN Bas NED

3 PARK Kyoung Doo KOR

3 KAUTER Fabian SUI

5 NOVOSJOLOV Nikolai EST

6 IMRE Geza HUN

7 LIMARDO Ruben VEN

8 ALIMZHANOV Elmir KAZ

9 LUCENAY Jean-Michel FRA

10 KELSEY Weston USA

11 ROTA Alfredo ITA

12 BOREL Yannick FRA

13 ZAWROTNIAK Radoslaw POL

14 BOUZAID Alexandre SEN

15 BOISVERT-SIMARD Hugues CAN

16 THOMPSON Soren USA

17 GRUMIER Gauthier FRA

18 FIEDLER Joerg GER

19 HEINZER Max SUI

20 KARUCHENKO Dmitriy UKR

21 VIDEIRA Joaquim POR

22 GUSTIN Ronan FRA

23 JUNG Jin Sun KOR

24 TORKILDSEN Sturla NOR

25 BERAN Jiri CZE

26 PIASECKI Bartosz NOR

27 MATTERN Cody USA

28 NISHIDA Shogo JPN

29 HEREY Anatoliy UKR

30 KURBANOV Ruslan KAZ

31 ROBINSON Seamus AUS

32 TOURCHINE Igor RUS

33 BOCZKO Gabor HUN

34 TAGLIARIOL Matteo ITA

35 SUKHOV Pavel RUS

36 SCHMITT Martin GER

37 AVDEEV Anton RUS

38 NIKISHIN Bogdan UKR

39 STEFFEN Benjamin SUI

40 PELLETIER Vincent CAN

41 VON DER OSTEN Frederik DEN

42 SOMFAI Peter HUN

42 ALVARADO HERNANDEZ Mario ESP

44 KRUCZEK Piotr POL

45 BAJGORIC Tigran CAN

46 NYISZTOR Alexandru ROU

47 JUNG Seung Hwa KOR

48 WANG Lei CHN

48 YIN Lianchi CHN

50 CANAS Kelvin VEN

51 FERNANDEZ Silvio VEN

52 CHARTOVICH Artsiom BLR

53 BRATTON Benjamin USA

54 POP Adrian ROU

55 TSUI Yiu Chung HKG

56 LAHTINEN Alexander FIN

57 LI Guojie CHN

58 TULEN Tristan NED

59 YAGHOUBIAN Ali IRI

60 PRIINITS Sten EST

61 EL SAGHIR Ahmed EGY

62 ANDRZEJUK Robert POL

63 SAMUELSSON Anton SWE

64 SALM Juri EST