RRI Sports Club
Florin Orban, 17.07.2019, 13:50
The World Fencing Championships are underway in Hungary’s capital
Budapest. The event is crucial as among other things it makes a compulsory
criterion for the qualifiers of next year’s Olympics Games in Japan. So far, saber
fencers have provided the best results for the Romanian delegation, as all four
fencers who took part in the competition qualified for the main draw. Tiberiu
Dolniceanu’s run in the group stage meant six wins in six confrontations, so
Dolniceanu earned his place among the top 64 fencers. Alin Badea, Florin
Zalomir and Iulian Teodosiu have secured their qualification for the main draw
with five wins each. All tree fencers will advance to the competition’s next
stages in the wake of the preliminary rounds. On Thursday in the main draw,
Tiberiu Dolniceanu will face the American Khalil Thompson, while Iulian
Teodosiu will take on British challenger William Deary. Florin Zalomir will
fight China’s Xiaohao Deng and Alin Badea will face Russian opponent Konstantin
Lokhanov.
Also on Thursday, two other Romanians will have their main draw
confrontations. In the women’s epee event, Ana Maria Popescu has qualified
straight into the main draw and will face Lizzie Asis of Venezuela. Amalia
Tataran emerged of the group stage with five wins and will fight last year’s nations’
competition world champion in China’s Wuxi, Katharine Holmes of the USA.
In the men’s epee event, Mario Persu has advanced to the main draw after
six wins in the group stage. On Friday, July 19, Persu will face Czech
challenger Jakub Jurka. All three other Romanian epee fencers went past the
group stage, yet they were eliminated in the preliminary rounds.
In the World Championships foil event, Maria Boldor’s two wins secured
her a place in the main draw, In the first preliminary round, Boldor defeated
Colombia’s Tatiana Prieto, then in the second preliminary round the Romanian
secured a win against Poland’s Martyna Synoradzka. In a main draw confrontation
on Friday, Maria Boldor will face Russia’s Inna Deriglazova.