USA Fencing

(Colorado Springs, Colo.) – Last season, the U.S. Men’s Foil Team won a total of 10 medals on the World Cup circuit and two-time Olympian Gerek Meinhardt (San Francisco, Calif.) owns six of them – three individual and three team medals.

A grad student in his final year of eligibility at Notre Dame, Meinhardt picked up where he left off with another podium finish on Saturday after the two-time Senior World medalist won bronze at the Paris Foil World Cup.

Ranked second in the world at the start of the tournament, Meinhardt was exempt from the pool rounds on Friday.

Tied with Niklas Uftring (GER) at four earlier in his table of 64 bout, Meinhardt broke away with four straight touches and went on to finish the bout, 15-9.

Meinhardt won his next bout, 15-10, Minkyu Kim (KOR) to advance to the table of 16 where he went on a 6-1 run early in the bout against 2013 Junior World medalist Alexander Choupenitch (CZE) before closing with a 15-9 win.

After three straight first period wins, Meinhardt had no intentions of slowing his pace in the quarter-finals where he fenced James Davis (GBR). The two combined for 16 touches in the first minute of the bout and Meinhardt took an 11-5 lead. Davis cut Meinhardt’s lead to 13-10, but took a medical timeout with an injured knee and Meinhardt finished the bout, 15-10.

In the semifinals, Meinhardt scored seven straight touches to take a 13-8 lead against Enzo Lefort (FRA). Bolstered by the cheers of his home crowd, however, Lefort wasn’t about to give up and fought back to tie the bout at 14 and scored the final touch to take the win. Lefort went on to take gold with a 15-9 victory over No. 1 seed Andrea Cassara (ITA).

Meinhardt’s teammates on the squad that won silver at the 2013 Senior Worlds each advanced to the table of 32.

The reigning individual Senior World Champion, Miles Chamley-Watson (New York City, N.Y.), became known for nail-biting wins in Budapest last summer and he was back at it in the table of 64 where 2012 Olympic silver medalist Alaaeldin Abouelkassem (EGY) led their bout, 8-3, in the second period. Chamley-Watson reeled off eight straight touches, however, to take an 11-8 lead and gave up just three more touches to the Egyptian as he went on to win the bout, 15-11.

In the table of 32, Chamley-Watson and Julien Mertine (FRA) went down to the wire again, but, this time it was the Frenchman who won the bout, 15-14.

Stanford sophomore Alexander Massialas (San Francisco, Calif.) began with a 15-9 win in the table of 64 against Moritz Kroeplin (GER), but lost to Erwan Le Pechoux (FRA), 15-6, in the table of 32.

Race Imboden (Brooklyn, N.Y.) edged Alexander Pivovarov (RUS), 15-13, in the table of 64. A 2012 Junior World silver medalist, Daniele Garozzo (ITA), upset Imboden, 15-7, in the table of 32.

Two U.S. fencers also advanced to the second day of competition in Paris. 

David Willette (Lafayette, Calif.), a Penn State senior, was seeded 21^st in the table of 64 after an undefeated day in the pools on Friday. Willette finished in 35^th place after a 15-12 loss to Leszek Rajski (POL).  

Willette’s teammate at Penn State, Nobuo Bravo (San Francisco, Calif.), advanced to the table of 64 for the third straight time at a senior international event, but Bravo lost to Richard Kruse (GBR), 15-13, and finished 51^st.

Click here to view complete results.

Top eight and U.S. results are as follows:

Paris Individual Foil World Cup
1. Enzo Lefort (FRA)
2. Andrea Cassara (ITA)
3. Peter Joppich (GER)
3. Gerek Meinhardt (San Francisco, Calif.)
5. Alexey Cheremisinov (RUS)
6. James Davis (GBR)
7. Haiwei Chen (CHN)
8. Daniele Garozzo (ITA)

17. Miles Chamley-Watson (New York City, N.Y.)
18. Alexander Massialas (San Francisco, Calif.)
19. Race Imboden (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
35. David Willette (Lafayette, Calif.)
51. Nobuo Bravo (San Francisco, Calif.)
75. Jerry Chang (Mountain View, Calif.)
86. Brian Kaneshige (Maplewood, N.J.)
153. Max Blitzer (Staten Island, N.Y.)