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Lee Kiefer to Win First U.S. Women’s Foil Individual Senior World Medal Since 1999 Tonight

10/11/2011, 9:31am CDT
By No Author

(Catania, Italy) – Seventeen-year-old Lee Kiefer (Lexington, Ky.) advanced to the medal rounds at the Senior World Championships this afternoon and tonight she will become the first U.S. woman to win a World or Olympic medal in women’s individual foil since 1999.

Competing for the third time at the event, the three-time Junior World medalist has never advanced past the table of 32 at the Senior World Championships or the table of 16 at a senior World.

Kiefer will fence three-time reigning Olympic Champion Valentina Vezzali (ITA) in front of Vezzali’s home crowd at noon Eastern Time. The bout will be streamed live at www.fie.org.

Tied at seven in the second period against Martyna Synoradzka (POL) in the quarter-finals, Kiefer found herself trailing by the middle of the third period as Synoradzka took the lead, 11-7. Kiefer came back to tie the bout, 12-12 in the first minute of the final period before taking the win, 15-12.

Earlier in the day, Kiefer won her table of 64 bout against U.S. teammate Doris Willette (Lafayette, Calif.), 15-10. Kiefer advanced to the table of 32 where she defeated Anja Schache (GER), 15-8, and won her bout in the table of 16 against Jinyan Chen (CHN), 15-10.

Nicole Ross (New York City, N.Y.) also advanced to the table of 16, but lost her bout to Ilaria Salvatori (ITA), 15-7, and finished 14th.

Nzingha Prescod (Brooklyn, N.Y.) placed 19th and Willette finished the day in 53rd place.

 



Tag(s): News  Lee Kiefer