(L-R) Alexander Massialas, Race Imboden, Gerek Meinhardt and Miles Chamley-Watson celebrate their win at the men's foil fencing world cup on May 6, 2018 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
In a showdown between the top two men’s foil fencing teams in the world, it was the the top-ranked U.S. team of Miles Chamley-Watson, Race Imboden, Alexander Massialas and Gerek Meinhardt that came away with the easy victory.
The 2016 Olympic team bronze medalists topped Italy 45-25 in the gold-medal bout in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Sunday for their fifth straight world cup victory – a clean sweep of every world cup stop of the 2017-18 season – a feat never before accomplished in U.S. history.
The U.S. lost to Italy in the gold-medal match of the 2017 world championships. The Americans have now won every match against the Italians since, having met and beaten them in world cup semifinals twice last fall.
Team USA started the day with a 45-29 win over No. 2 Belarus before a closer quarterfinal bout against 12th-ranked Great Britain, in which the Americans came out on top 45-37.
For the second world cup in a row, Team USA defeated reigning Olympic champion Russia – which took down the U.S. in Rio two years ago in the semifinal – in the St. Petersburg semifinals. The Americans topped the host team 45-38 to move into the final.
The U.S. men’s foil team is back in action at the 2018 world championships, July 21-27 in Wuxi, China.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
