Cadet
Men’s Foil Team in Koblenz By
Wendell Kubik
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Enzo Castellani
| (Reprinted by permission of Wendell Kubik) On January 26, 2007, seventeen of our cadet men’s foil fencers traveled to Koblenz, Germany for the Sparkasse Cup International Cadet tournament. Sparkasse is a local bank that sponsors this event which is hosted by the Königsbacher SC fencing club and Hilde Joppich (mother of Peter Joppich, the current World Champion in men’s foil). Peter was unable to attend because he was fencing at a Grand Prix in Paris. Autographed photographs were available for the cadet fencers at the bout committee table upon registration. This event has been selected by the US National Coaches as the designated cadet B event for men’s foil for the last three years because of the high quality of the fencing, the superb organization, and the two-day format which provides plenty of bouting experience for our developing international fencers. The format includes four rounds of pools. Three rounds of pools are fenced on the first day. On the second day, there is one final round of pools leading into a repêchage (or double-elimination) starting from a table of 64 fencers. Our first place winner, Enzo Castellani, fenced 22 five-touch pool bouts and eight 15-touch direct elimination bouts over the two day event. The US team included Enzo Castellani, NickKubik, Benjamin Van Son, Jeremy Goldstein, Zain Shaito, Vidur Kapur, Danny Nguyen, Marcus Howard, Nobuo Bravo, Frederick Bentley III, Lucas Lin, Alexander Massialas, Seth McCormick, Christopher Khoshnevissan, Robert Malcolm, Igor Krivenko, and Armin Chan. There were 264 entries and all seventeen of our cadets advanced to the second round of 175 fencers. The second round of pools cut the field to 119 fencers and the third and final round on Saturday cut the field to 84. Nine of our fencer made it to the second day with the final round of pools cutting the field to a repêchage table of 64. Six US fencers made the table of 64. There were some very exciting bouts during the double eliminations. Enzo Costellani had a two-second instant replay victory against Vincent Simon of France in the bout to get into the top four. The referee, Dora Deli of Hungary, was having trouble starting the clock with the remote control for the scoring machine. With four seconds remaining in the third and final period, she let two seconds click off before giving the order to fence. Simon retreated off the end of the piste as the clock expired thinking he had the victory. Fortunately, one of our outstanding US coaches, Alex Kuznetsov, pleaded successfully and the referee put two more seconds on the clock. Enzo made the most of it and scored the touch to tie the bout at 14. It was like putting two seconds back on the clock in the Super Bowl and kicking a game tying field goal. He went on to score the winning touch in overtime, with a brilliant counter-attack, and advanced to the final four. He then defeated Hungary’s Robert Gatai in the semi-final, and another Frenchman, Jean Tony Helissey, for the gold. This great result put him right back in position for the third slot on the cadet world team. The US and French teams did a healthy amount of loud but good-spirited cheering during these exciting final bouts. It demonstrated great support for the fencers and built team unity for both teams. Nick Kubik won four repêchage bouts before falling by one touch to Pierre Quieros of France and finishing 16th. Our fencers learned a lot about supporting each other while going for the gold. They also had a lot of fun and are anxious to return to international competition. Coaches attending included the national junior men’s foil coach Misha Itkin, Les Stawicki, Wendell Kubik, Alex Kuznetsov, Mark Masters, Darius Wei, and Elaine Aliberti. On Friday night, before the first day of the competition, snowflakes were falling as we walked through this thousand-year-old German city. The team had dinner together at the Stadt Krone restaurant with parents, coaches and the US referees, Mary Mahon and Mark Stasinos. It was a great time to get to know each other, relax, and get a good meal before the competition. For most of the team, the day had started at the Frankfurt airport where we managed to assemble at a predetermined meeting point. The café we selected as our meeting point had been moved during a recent renovation. In fact, the Segafredo café had expanded to three different locations throughout the airport. After a few cell phone calls and a little luck we managed to get our 24 fencers, parents and coaches onto the train to Koblenz. We enjoyed a scenic ride along the Rhine River in a double-decker railcar. We saw ancient castles and vineyards on the way to Koblenz which lies at the confluence of the Rhine and Mösel rivers. We gathered together again for dinner on Sunday night at the El Toro steak house and pizzeria to celebrate with our champion and review the days events. On Monday, we caught a 6:45 AM train to the Frankfurt airport and collapsed into our airline seats for the long flight home. |
