MOSCOW, Russia, May 26, 2019—France’s Bolade Apithy and Russia’s Sofya Velikaya won individual gold medals at the 2019 Moscow Sabre Grand Prix. This was the ninth and final Grand Prix of the FIE 2018-2019 season nine-event series. It featured 347 international men’s and women’s fencers competing at Moscow’s Arena CSKA.
Apithy faced USA’s number-one ranked Eli Dershwitz in the final match of individual men’s sabre, winning with a 15-10 score. Dershwitz overcame Italy’s Luca Curatoli in the semi-finals, 15-12, while Apithy beat Germany’s Max Hartung, 15-13. Notably, Dershwitz defeated reigning Korean world champion Junghwan Kim, 15-13, in the quarter-finals, and Curatoli eliminated his teammate, Olympic gold medallist and world champion Aldo Montano in the table of 16, 15-8.
Top-ranked Russian two-time world champion and two-time Olympic silver medallist Sofya Velikaya fenced China’s Yaqi Shao for the individual women’s sabre gold medal, winning 15-8. This was Velikaya’s fourth time winning the Moscow Sabre Grand Prix. Shao beat Hungary’s Liza Pusztai, 15-9, in the semi-finals, and Velikaya defeated her teammate and reigning world champion, Sofia Pozdniakova, 15-13. Russian Olympic gold medallist Yana Egorian lost to Pozdniakova by a single touch, 15-14, in the quarter-finals, and Shao beat Ukrainian three-time world champion Olga Kharlan, 15-12, in the same round.
Overall top-eight ranking for the 2019 Moscow Sabre Grand Prix men’s event include Bolade Apithy (FRA, gold), Eli Dershwitz (USA, silver), Luca Curatoli (ITA, bronze), Max Hartung (GER, bronze), Bongil Gu (KOR), Junghwan Kim (KOR), Kamil Ibragimov (RUS) and Sandro Bazadze (GEO).
Top-eight ranking for the women include Sofya Velikaya (RUS, gold), Yaqi Shao (CHN, silver), Sofia Pozdniakova (RUS, bronze), Liza Pusztai (HUN, bronze), Olga Kharlan (UKR), Jiarui Qian (CHN), Yana Egorian (RUS) and Martina Criscio (ITA).
Complete results for the 2019 Moscow Sabre Grand Prix may be found here for men and here for women on the FIE Web site.