Montréal, August 11, 2013 – The Canadian épéeists had a tough day, Sunday, at the Fencing World Championships presented in Budapest, Hungary. Both the men and women’s teams were eliminated in their very first matches in the round of 32, each squad finishing the tournament in 20th place.

The Quebecers Marc-Antoine Blais-Bélanger, Hugues Boisvert-Simard and Vincent Pelletier, along with British Columbian Tigran Bajgoric lost 45-35 against the Israelis in their first duel in the main table.

“They took the lead right out of the gate, and we never got into any kind of rhythm. We never really had a chance of coming back to win. We were lacking energy and the team dynamic wasn’t very good. I found that we weren’t getting behind each other,” Pelletier noted. “In contrast, their team was really intense. That’s what made the difference in my opinion.”

“We had recently beaten them in Argentina but the match was pretty close,” the Quebecois athlete pointed out. They have a solid squad, but it’s a squad that we should be able to beat. That said, if we wanted any chance of beating them, we couldn’t be off like we were today.”

The Israeli team then went on to defeat the United States, before being stopped by Poland in the quarterfinals. They would lose their next two match-ups against Venezuela and Italy to finish with an 8th place classification.

For the Canadians, ranked 15th in the world in team fencing, the 20th place finish was a bitter disappointment. “Considering the side of the table we were on, we really felt like a top-8 finish was within our grasp. Anything lower was going to be a disappointment. So to lose our first match… It was really a bad outing,” Pelletier concluded.

On the women’s side, the Canadians, coming in ranked 21st in the International Fencing Federation, also lost in the first round. The squad, made up of Ontarians Joanna Guy and Alexis D. Anna Rudkovska along with Quebecers Vanessa Lacas-Warrick and Britanny Mark-Larkin suffered defeat against the Poles by a score of 45-34 in the round of 32. Taken down by the Americans in the following round, Poland concluded their competition with a 15th place finish.

The Fencing World Championships in Budapest will come to a close on Monday, with the men’s foil and women’s sabre fencing teams taking to the strip.

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Written by Sportcom for the CFF