Japan’s Minobe and China’s Sun the golden performers at FIE’s Cali Epee Fencing Grand Prix

Minobe won the men’s individual epee event whilst Sun was equally impressive in taking out the women’s individual event which took place at the Pacific Valley Events Centre in Cali.

More than 350 international men’s and women’s fencers competed in the International Fencing Federation’s (FIE) seventh Grand Prix event of the nine in this 2018-2019 season international series.

Minobe, who also won the Budapest Grand Prix in March, faced Poland’s Radoslaw Zawrotniak in the final match of men’s individual epee competition, winning with a 15-12 score.

The Japanese fencer had to fight equally as hard to make the gold medal match, by prevailing in closely fought contests over Korea’s Sagmin Kim (12-11) in the round of 16, Italy’s Gabriele Cimini (15-13) in the quarter-finals and Netherland’s Tristan Tulen (15-10) in the semi-finals.

Zawrotniak also had to pull out all the stops to make the Final, beating China’s Zijie Wang in the quarter-finals (15-12) and then Italy’s Marco Fichera in the semi-final round by the same scoreline.

Korean Olympic gold medallist Sangyoung Park was eliminated in the round of 16 by Italian Federico Vismara, 15-10; Vismara however was eliminated in the next round, the quarter-finals, where his teammate Fichera beat him 15-13.

In the women’s individual epee event, China’s Yiwen Sun took the gold medal with a stunning 15-13victory over Italy’s world champion Mara Navarria,.

To get there Sun beat Hong Kong’s number-one-ranked Man Wai Vivian Kong in the quarter-finals (15-8), before accounting for Romania’s Ana Maria Popescu, who won this year’s Budapest Grand Prix in the semi-finals (14-13).

Navarria beat Estonia’s Katrina Lehis in the semi-final round, 15-10.

The next action in the FIE Grand Prix series is the men’s and women’s foil Grand Prix in Shanghai, China, from 17 to 19 May