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Roundup: Higher Ranking, More Chance to Win
Two fencers with high rankings in the International Fencing Federation won gold medals respectively in the men's and women's individual sabre fencing at the 21st World University Games.
Unlike the previous fencing competitions days ago in which produced a strings of upsets, the higher ranked sabre fencers put up great performance in the competitions Monday.
Technical merits and experiences in actual combat started to play more important role than fencers' fortune.
Russia's Sergej Charikov, who is now ranked second by the world governing body, beat Italy's Giampiero Pastore, who is ranked 19th, 15-8 in a frustrating match.
Charikov, Sydney Olympics gold medalist in team sabre, defeated 56th-ranked Jaime Marti and 20th ranked Fernando Medina, both from Spain, ninth-ranked Zsolt Nemcsik of Hungary and 22nd-ranked Alexei Frossine of Russia successively before reaching the final.
Frossine and Alessandro Cavaliere of Italy, who is ranked 31st in the world, shared the bronze medal.
Italian swordswoman Ilaria Bianco, who is ranked fifth at present, took Italy's revenge on Russia for beating her Russian counterpart Natalia Makeeva, tenth ranked, 15-10.
China's Bao Yingying made an unexpected run marching into semi- finals of women's individual sabre fencing. However, the 17-year- old fledgling fencer was stopped by Makeeva, the eventual silver medalist.
When interviewed by Xinhua after the match, Bao said that she was extremely satisfied with her performance in the Universiade.
China took part in the women's sabre fencing, which is still a demonstration event at Olympics, not long ago.
"The young fencers should accumulate their experience by participating in more and more international competitions," said Wang Jian, manager of China's national team.
However, Chinese swordsmen even had no face-to-face chance to prestigious fencers worldwide. "There is a long road for them to pursue the world level," Wang said.
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