French dominance of men’s epee continues as Borel wins in Rio

After an excellent weekend of foil discipline competition in Shanghai, China, the FIE GP series moved onto the host city for next year’s Olympic Games in Brazil as over 300 top-ranked fencers in the world continued their road to qualification for Rio 2016.

With the best epeeists in the world competing, the competition delivered some fast, furious action on the pistes and a few surprises along the way.

While some of the predictable champions prevailed into the top eight, such as France’s Ulrich Robeiri and Switzerland’s Max Heinzer, Italian Gabriele Cimini caused a minor upset by worked his way into the 16 by overtaking Russia’s seventh-ranked Anton Avdeev, before losing to Borel.

The biggest upset in the last 16 was reserved for Germany’s 16th-ranked Christoph Kneip who accounted for first-ranked Robeir..

Going into the top eight, Switzerland’s Heinzer, Poland’s Zawrotniak, and fencers from a total of seven different countries made for a very diverse quarter-final line-up, before the semi-finals narrowed the field down to equally diverse group of quality epeeists.

The final four came in shape of Germany’s Kneip, Switzerland’s Heinzer, Poland’s Zawrotniak, and France’s Borel.

Heinzer and Borel made it through to the final, Borel defeating Radoslaw Zawritniak in the semi-finals with Heinzer progressing at the expense of Kneip.

It was an intriguing final in prospect with each fencer having significantly different epee styles: Borel fences with a more classic French technique using great weapon precision and well-timed actions, while Heinzer uses a more contortionist, speed-driven and energetic attack with low-line remises and lightning reflexes.

In the end, however, Borel’s tried-and-true style prevailed as he led the Swiss from start to finish, lunging his way to gold winning the duel 15-10 in the showpiece match

Borel’s victory means France have now won six out of eight men’s epee gold medals in this year’s Grand Prix series.

Speaking afterwards, Sport director for the FIE and former world epee champion Krisztian Kulcsar, observing and overseeing the competition, said “We [the FIE] are very pleased that high-level fencers are here from so many countries, and that they have not only just participated but excelled at a high level.”