Just one week after the last Fencing Grand Prix for 2014 in New York, we have gathered the best moments from three of the nine « iconic locations » which hosted the events. A true revolution in the FIE calendar, where we had both the men's and the women's competitions at the same time, thus bringing together all the leading figures of the specialty in three days of fencing.
The inaugural event, “Fencing Grand Prix Trofeo Inalpi”, took place with a foil competition in Turin, Italy. The Sisport Torino hosted the qualification rounds for all the women and men foil fencers on the world stage on Friday 28 November and then the finals competitions were held in PalaRuffini di Torino over the weekend. In the women’s foil, the two-time World champion Arianna Errigoproduced a wonderful display to secure a convincing win over compatriot Elisa Di Francisca. On the men’s side, the Russian foil fencer Alex Cheremisinov outclassed his countryman Renal Ganeev in the finals.
The second stop of the FIE Fencing Grand Prix series was in Doha with an epée competition. The “Qatar Fencing Grand Prix” took place in the city of Doha from 5 to 7 December. The official venues welcomed representatives from 47 countries. The qualification competition was held at the Aspire Dome at Khalifa Sports while the finals took place at the Gate Mall / Salam International. Gold epée medallist for the Qatar Fencing Grand Prix 2014 was Jerent Daniel of France with a win over Borsky Peer. For the epée ladies, Gherman Simona of Romania was able to establish and keep her lead and eventually defeat Kirpu Erika from Estonia.
Finally, last weekend December 13-14, the first sabre FGP of the season, the “Absolute Fencing Gear New York Sabre Grand Prix”, was held with the preliminaries at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge and the final rounds at the historic Grand Prospect Hall. The 24-year old World number one from Ukraine, Olha Kharlan who won bronze at the 2012 Olympics in London, beat on-form Russian Sofya Velikaya and won the gold medal. In the men’s finals, Junghwan Kim came out on top. The South Korean sabre fencer defeated the 2004 Olympic champion Aldo Montano of Italy.
The 2015 Fencing Grand Prix series gets underway with events in March in Havana, Budapest and Seoul before a final stretch in May takes in Grand Prix in Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro and Moscow.
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