Russia’s Reshetnikov turns back clock to regain European fencing men’s sabre title in Düsseldorf

Ten years after winning the European fencing title, the 33 year old beat team-mate Kamil Ibragimov on this occasion to take gold once again.

Teammates also came together to battle it out in the final of the women’s épée as France’s Coraline Vitalis took her first major championship title by beating Marie-Florence Candassamy.

The men’s sabre competition at the Messe Düsseldorf threw up a surprise as Reshetnikov beat team-mate Kamil Ibragimov 15-7 in the final, with home favourite and defending champion Max Hartung and Georgia’s Sandro Bazadze having to settle for the bronze medals.

The 2009 champion showed his intent in the ranking round, winning all five of his fights to be ranked fourth for the knockout phase of the competition. He then eased through the direct elimination stages, comfortably beating Germany’s Matyas Szabo and Enrico Berre of Italy to make the semi-finals.
There he met Hartung. the winner of this event in both 2017 and 2018, and even with the vociferous support from the crowd the home favourite could not prevent Reshtnikov from winning, going down 15-10.

Ibragimov was also in good form and dropped only one fight in the ranking round. After a tough 15-14 victory over Romania’s Iulian Teodosiu, his semi-final opponent was Bazadze who had injured his ankle earlier in the day. However the Russian was in no mood for favour and beat him 15-11.

The final saw Reshetnikov go 5-0 up before Ibragimov settled and went into the break 8-5 down. However in the second period Reshetnikov showed all his experience and closed down the gold medal match to secure his second European title.

In the women’s épée, 24-year-old Vitalis claimed her first major championship title by beating beat Candassamy 15-11, the pair having beaten Alexandra Ndolo of Germany and Ewa Trzebinka of Poland respectively in the semi-finals.

Success for Vitalis was made all the more credible as she had only just managed to squeeze through the ranking round, winning just two of her six fights to be seeded a lowly 63rd for the direct elimination stages.

After taking care of second seed Beate Christmann of Germany in the first knockout round, she showed her intent by edging out Romania’s world number two, Ana Maria Popescu, 14-13 in the next round.

She did not have it easy in the rest of the draw but battled to the semi-finals, beating Alexandra Ndolo of Germany 15-12.

In the other half of the draw, Candassamy equally did not have a comfortable passage to the medal matches either. She did however impress when beating former Russian world champion Violetta Kolobova 15-14 before knocking out Trzebinska in the semi-finals.

After going head-to-head for gold, Vitalis and Candassamy will come together to compete for France in the team event later in the week.