Blog
Eagle vs. Dragon: Women’s Saber 2006-2007
Bill Ward
Fencing Pictures is proud to have Bill Ward on the FP Team! Bill is a television videographer/ editor specializing in high definition programming. His work has appeared on The Discovery Channel, HGTV, The Food Network, PBS and other networks. Bill and his two children, Rebecca and William, admit to some familiarity with a saber.
Ahh... sunny St. Petersburg… wait, Petrograd… no, St. Petersburg: the city that changes it name as often as Prince--the artist formally known as: (you guessed it)...Prince. Or my cousin Jimmy Billy-Bob McDougall-on-the-Rhone, who flunked out of school because it always took the entire period just to get his name written on the test paper.
St. Petersburg is the venue for the 2007 Senior World Fencing Championships. In women’s saber, the season-long story has been the running aerial dogfight between the powerful squadron of American front runners and China’s resurgent ace, Tan Xue.
Americans Sada Jacobson, Rebecca Ward and Mariel Zagunis sat firmly on top of the FIE rankings for much of the season, with early wins in London and Orleans. At Budapest in February, Tan Xue came diving out of the sun to strafe the competition and win the first Grand Prix of the season… a strategy that would continue to work well for her the rest of the year. Concentrating on Grand Prix events, Tan Xue racks up wins in Foggia, Hanoi and Tianjin, and slides in front of US wingperson Sada Jacobson to go into 3rd place. Now, Tan has her gunsights fixed on the Zagunis and Ward.
The two American Top Guns notch victories in Algeria, Klagenfurt and Havana, but with half the points of a Grand Prix, those wins can’t keep the Chinese Dragon from coming up on their six. Incredibly, Tan Xue buzzes into Las Vegas for the last event of the season having flamed out in just a single bout all season: a round of 8 loss to Ward in Orleans. After starting the year in 10th place, Tan Xue is poised to take over the number one slot with a victory in Vegas.
Xue and Ward meet in the finals in the Las Vegas Grand Prix. The American Eagle outmaneuvers her opponent, and the Dragon spirals down in defeat, 15-7. While Ward claims the top spot in FIE rankings, it doesn’t last long. With the addition this season of Zonal Championships to the points mix, the final top 20 rankings going into the 2007 World Championships look like this:
1 404 TAN Xue CHN
2 298 WARD Rebecca USA
3 244 ZAGUNIS Mariel USA
4 202 JACOBSON Sada USA
5 198 MARZOCCA Gioia ITA
6 188 FEDORKINA Ekaterina RUS
7 174 VELIKAIA Sophia RUS
8 166 NETCHAEVA Elena RUS
9 138 JOZWIAK Bogna POL
10 126 BIANCO Ilaria ITA
11 122 TOUYA Anne-Lise FRA
12 120 ZHAO Yuanyuan CHN
13 118 CHOW Tsz Ki HKG
14 114 SOCHA Aleksandra POL
15 112 NAGY Orsolya HUN
16 112 PERRUS Leonore FRA
17 112 VERGNE Carole FRA
18 108 LEE Shin Mi KOR
19 100 ARGIOLAS Cecile FRA
20 100 WOZNIAK Dagmara
With its triple points, these World Championships will play a major role as the fencers jockey for position going into the final events of Olympic qualification for Beijing, 2008. The team standings loom large in women’s saber, since the top four teams at the end of March, 2008 get a free pass into the Olympics, along with their 3 top fencers in each team.
It’s a tight race, with slots still up for grabs. Going into St. PetersBillyBobBurg, the top 10 teams look like this:
1 260 U.S.A.
2 250 CHINE
3 236 RUSSIE
4 234 FRANCE
5 230 UKRAINE
6 166 POLAND
7 164 KOREA
8 152 HUNGARY
9 149 ITALY
10 138 CANADA
Not a lot of breathing room for anyone. The USA owes France some payback for a loss in the Torino finals, Russia has struggled through the entire season without a team win, and the Tiny Ukrainian Terrors Team(TUTT) have been competitive all year long. With their win in Budapest and a couple of second place finishes, the TUTTs are well-positioned to make a run at first round Olympic selection.
One new face for the American team: Dagmara Wozniak. In a photo finish at the end of the season, Dagmara edged out Caity Thompson to take the fourth slot. Caity had been on the last two World Championship teams for the USA, including the 2005 Team World Championship in Leipzig.
Out of 18,555 team selection points scored between the two, Wozniak’s margin of victory: 63 points.
The US saber squad has a September training camp in Germany, then it’s off to the land of borscht!
By Bill Ward
