USA Fencing

(Colorado Springs, Colo.) – London Olympian Lee Kiefer (Lexington, Ky.) advanced to the table of 16 at the final event of the World Cup circuit on Saturday at the Marseille Foil Grand Prix in France.

Exempt from the pool rounds, the Notre Dame sophomore opened with a 15-3 victory over Iyo Matsumoto (JPN) in the table of 64 and won her next bout against two-time Junior World team medalist Adelina Zaguidullina (RUS), 15-9.

Kiefer lost her table of 16 bout to six-time Olympic Champion Valentina Vezzali (ITA), 15-9, and finished 11^th.

Kiefer’s London teammates, Nzingha Prescod (Brooklyn, N.Y.) and Nicole Ross (New York City, N.Y.), both advanced to the table of 32.

Prescod came into the tournament as the defending champion and the event’s fifth seed. The Columbia senior defeated Flora Tran (FRA), 15-10, in the table of 64, but lost her next bout to 2003 Junior World medalist Gaelle Gebet (FRA), 15-5.

Ross went 5-1 in the pools on Friday to earn the 22^nd seed in the table of 64 where she defeated Hye Mi Oh (KOR), 15-2. Ross kept her next bout close, but lost to 2013 Senior World Team Champion Carolina Erba (ITA), 7-5.

Margaret Lu (Greenwich, Conn.), a Columbia sophomore and 2014 Junior World Team Champion, earned a bye out of the pools and into the table of 64, but lost her first direct elimination bout to Gebet, 11-10.

Fencing in her second senior international tournament, Olivia Dobbs (Farmington, Mich.) repeated her top-64 result from this event in 2013. After a 4-2 result in pools, Dobbs lost her table of 64 bout to Zagidullina, 15-11.

Madison Zeiss (Culver City, Calif.), a two-time NCAA medalist from Notre Dame, defeated Barbara Ojeda (ESP), 15-1, in the preliminary table of 64 on Friday. Zeiss lost her next bout to Carolin Golubytskyi (GER), 15-10, in the table of 64.

Click here to view complete results.

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

Marseille Foil Grand Prix
1. Arianna Errigo (ITA)
2. Inna Deriglazova (RUS)
3. Elisa Di Francisca (ITA)
3. Carolina Erba (ITA)
5. Diana Yakovleva (RUS)
6. Valentina Vezzali (ITA)
7. Larisa Korobeynikova (RUS)
8. Seung Min Lim (KOR)

11. Lee Kiefer (Lexington, Ky.)
18. Nzingha Prescod (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
21. Nicole Ross (New York City, N.Y.)
43. Margaret Lu (Greenwich, Conn.)
46. Olivia Dobbs (Farmington, Mich.)
62. Madison Zeiss (Culver City, Calif.)
83. Morgan Partridge (Swansea, Mass.)