July 15 – The Canadian men’s and women’s foil teams were in top form on Wednesday at the 2015 World Championships, as 6 of the 8 Canadian participants locked down spots in tomorrow’s table of 64 bouts.

The entire women’s team – Alanna Goldie, Eleanor Harvey, Shannon Comerford and Kelleigh Ryan – moved on to the direct eliminations with stellar performances throughout the preliminary round. On the men’s side, Maximillien Van Haaster and Eli Schenkel moved on, while Anthony Prymack and Etienne Lalonde-Turbide fell just short.

Goldie and Comerford tore through the pool rounds with records of 6-0 and 5-1, respectively, while Harvey won four of her six preliminary bouts – all three booking their spots in the direct eliminations. Ryan went 3-2 and needed a bout in the pretable 64, which she won handily, 15-9, over China’s Hiu Wai Valerie Cheng.

All four are scheduled to hit the piste tomorrow morning. Harvey and Comerford will go first, with Harvey up against Turkey’s Magdalena Knop and Comerford taking on Germany’s Anne Sauer. They’ll be followed by Ryan, who will face Astrid Guyart of France. Goldie, who faces Alely Hernandez of Mexico, has the latest start of the morning.

On the men’s side, Van Haaster and Schenkel earned byes into the pretable 64, while Lalonde-Turbide had to go up against Ukrainian Pylyp Kolesnikov, a bout he won 15-12. Unfortunately Lalonde-Turbide lost his pretable 64 bout by the same score to Alexander Tsoronis of Denmark, ending his world championships. Van Haaster and Schenkel both won their pretable 64 bouts, with Van Haaster handily beating Colombian Gabriel Mejia Ruiz by a score of 15-5, while Schenkel took down Egypt’s Marwan Ahmed by a score of 15-10.

Schenkel is scheduled to face another Egyptian, Alaaeldin Abouelkassem, in the table of 64 tomorrow morning, while Van Haaster takes on China’s Sheng Lei.

Tomorrow also marks the beginning of team competition, with the sabre teams set to return to action after a few days off.

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