Mariel Zagunis is World Champion!! Kurt Getz and US Men’s Foil Make History!

2-Time Olympic Champion Mariel Zagunis  can add world champion to her resume as she captured her first title with a dominating performance at the 2009 World Championships of fencing in Antalya, Turkey.

Her closest bout was her first one, where her opponent from Korea scored 11.  After that, Zagunis seemed to get stronger with each match.  She captured the gold defeating Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan 15-6.

Daria Schneider, making her first world championship appearance, finished in the top-16 defeating Socha of Poland in 15-14 in the round 64 and then teammate Monica Aksamitin the round of 32.  Dagmara Wozniak fell in the 64 to Monica Aksamit 15-14.  It was a bad luck bracket for team US since they all drew each other.

The men’s foil team also had a terrific day.   In the past 70 years, US fencing hasn’t had 2 fencers in the top-16 at world championships and that’s exactly what Gerek Meinhardt and Kurt Getz pulled off.

The star of the day was Kurt Getz who made it all the way to the top-8.  He upset #3 ranked Richard Kruse of Britain in the 16.  Then in the top 8, in perhaps the longest bout in world’s history he lost to Zhu of China. 

Zhu of China and Getz "compete" in the quarter-finals

The match lasted close to an hour and included 2 injury time-outs, a strip change, several equipment stoppages and then an intermission while the opening ceremonies were conducted.  The score remained 4-1 for Zhu for close to 30 minutes while equipment, injuries and ceremonies delayed the bout before Zhu finished off Getz.

The young men’s foil team showed that it will be force to be reckoned with in the future.   Miles Chamley-Watson and Alex Massailes both lost in the 64 in tremendously close matches.

National Coach Ed Korfanty coaches Daria Schneider at the break against Socha of Poland

Today, men’s epee and women’s foil are competing.

Ready, Fence! Day 1 of World Championships

The World Championships of Fencing kicked off today in Antalya, Turkey with preliminary rounds of women’s saber and men’s foil.  Only 4 US fencers competed today and all of them advanced to the round of 64: Daria Schneider (3-2 in pools, advanced), Dagmara Wozniak (3-2 in pools, advance), Miles Chamley Watson (4-2 in pools, advanced) and Alex Massailis (4-1, advanced)

Olympic Champion Mariel Zagunis, Monica Aksamit, Kurt Getz and Gerek Meinhart all had byes.    The format this year is slightly adjusted.  The preliminary rounds for each event are happening followed by a 2 day break before the tableau of 64.

This is the most amount of US fencers in the top-16 in history.  Many US fencers put up strong results this year, but a number of intriguing factors upped those numbers.  First, the Asian Zonal is being held after worlds so the FIE removed their points dropping most of them drastically given that competitions value to the world ranking.    Second, Monica Aksamit was ranked 17^th, but #5 in the world Tan is not competing here with rumors of conflict with her coach Christian Bauer being the reason.  This moved her up to 16^th and a bye.  The 6’6 Wang, China’s anchor in the team event is not competing as well with similar rumors abounding about his absence.

Tomorrow, women’s foil and men’s epee will be competing in the preliminary rounds.   Stay tuned here for stories, www.twitter.com/timmorehouse for live results and fencing.net for more stories!

Fencing World Championships LIVE on NBC UNIVERSAL SPORTS!

More great news!

The 2009 Fencing World Championships in Antalya, Turkey will be airing LIVE at 10:30am from October 3-8 on NBC Universal Sports!

This is the first time our World Championships will be aired live in the USA!

Here is an email that went out to all the fencing clubs with information on the championships from Christi Phillips who is heading up marketing for fencing worlds for NBC.

Help spread the word! (Make this picture your FB banner page!) What else can WE and YOU do? (WE NEED EVERYONE ONBOARD TO PROMOTE!)

EMAIL TO CLUBS:
Dear Clubs and Coaches,

My name is Christi Phillips and I work for NBC Universal Sports (www.universalsports.com), a channel and website partnered with NBC that highlights Olympic Sports all year long (formerly WCSN).

We own the exclusive US and Canada Internet rights for the upcoming 2009 FIE Fencing World Championships, and will be broadcasting the event LIVE and FREE from October 3-8 at 10:30AM ET every morning.  These times are subject to change. 

I would greatly appreciate your help in getting this information out to your members and teams so that they can watch the top athletes in their sport.  I understand that the live coverage is in the middle of the school day, and thus the reason we will offer our coverage on demand (at no cost) following the live coverage. 

To watch the Live coverage, simply go to www.universalsports.com and click on the LIVE NOW link for that day, at the top of the webpage.  To watch all archived events, please refer to: http://www.universalsports.com/club/std/ViewCategory.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&CAT_SPORT_ID=11667&DB_OEM_ID=23000&KEY=&SPID=11667&SPSID=105643

I have attached our promotional banners (very cool!) to this email.  If you would post them on your website, I would greatly appreciate it.  You can link the banners to: http://www.universalsports.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&KEY=&SPID=11667&SPSID=105640

On a side note, our fencing editor spent some time with the US men’s sabre team, and posted a story about his experience.  To read his story, please click here:

http://www.universalsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=95644&SPID=11667&DB_OEM_ID=23000&ATCLID=204794071

NBC Universal Sports Set to Make History with First Ever Broadcast of Fencing Worlds in the USA

Great news for USA Fencing. 

NBC Universal Sports will be carrying the fencing world championships.   This is the first time in history that the fencing world championships will be covered either live or on tape delayed on a television network of any kind in the US.

They are still trying to decide if they will carry the events live or if they will tape delay, but  the CEO of the network will also be traveling to Turkey so they are certainly taking the event seriously.

The TV listing are still TBD, but you can check back here for times soon:
http://www.universalsports.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&KEY=&SPID=11667&SPSID=105640

Of course, you can always just follow the World Championships on my twitter…twitter.com/timmorehouse.  

Isn’t that more fun than TV these days?!?! Kidding.

Once the times are posted we will really need to rally our friends and family to watch and create some serious viral buzz.  We need a good ratings show to continue getting coverage!

On our athlete end, we need to get ourselves into the medals rounds so we’re the ones people in the US will be watching when they tune into watch the finals!  

USA Men’s fencing hasn’t won a world championships in over 70 years…time to remedy that!