(Colorado Springs, Colo.) – Team USA earned its best finish in a men’s foil World Cup event since 2007 on Sunday at the Bonn World Cup in Germany.
Miles Chamley-Watson (Philadelphia, Pa.), the #3-ranked foil fencer in the world, led Team USA to a fifth-place finish in the team competition on Sunday.
Chamley-Watson and teammates Kurt Getz (Rye, N.Y.), Race Imboden (Brooklyn, N.Y.) and Benjamin Parkins (The Woodlands, Texas) opened with a 45-41 win over Poland, but their #7 seed going into the tournament meant a second-round bout against Italy – the reigning World and Olympic Champions.
Although Team USA fell to Italy, the Americans kept the bout close with a score of 45-36.
The second round loss meant the best Team USA could finish was fifth overall, but the young athletes stepped up and defeated France, 45-42, and Russia, 45-40, in the next two rounds to earn the fifth-place finish.
“This weekend was, by far, one of our best results as a team which gives the team more confidence,” said USA Fencing Foil Director Mauro Hamza (Pearland, Texas). “We have a young team and it was good for them to see that level of success and this will push them to work harder as we approach the beginning of the Olympic qualifying season.”
Chamley-Watson earned his second top-32 finish at a major international event this season on Saturday in the individual competition when the 21-year-old placed 17th as the only member of Team USA to qualify for the table of 64.
Exempt from competing in the preliminary rounds on Friday as the #3-ranked fencer in the world, Chamley-Watson won his opening bout against Jialuo Shi (CHN), 15-12.
In the second round, Chamley-Watson lost to 2010 Junior World Champion, Alaa El Din El Sayed (EGY), 15-8.
Top-eight and U.S. results are as follows:
Bonn Foil Individual World Cup
1. Dmitri Rigine (RUS)
2. Byung-Chul Choi (KOR)
3. Jianfei Ma (CHN)
3. Peter Joppich (GER)
5. Sheng Lei (CHN)
6. Andrea Cassara (ITA)
7. Marcel Marcilloux (FRA)
8. Ryo Miyake (JPN)
17. Miles Chamley-Watson (Philadelphia, Pa.)
87. Jerry Chang (Mountain View, Calif.)
97. Brendan Meyers (New York City, N.Y.)
108. Kurt Getz (Rye, N.Y.)
114. Brian Kaneshige (Maplewood, N.J.)
128. Race Imboden (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
146. Benjamin Parkins (The Woodlands, Texas)
149. Rafael Suarez (Miami, Fla.)
163. Andras Hornayi (Boulder, Colo.)
194. Alexander Chiang (Atlanta, Ga.)
Bonn Foil Team World Cup
1. Italy
2. Korea
3. Germany
4. Japan
5. USA
6. Russia
7. France
8. China
Tag(s): News Miles Chamley-Watson
