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Russia beats France to repeat gold in men's Olympic Team Sabre
SYDNEY, Sept 24 (AFP) - Russia won the men's Olympic Team Sabre fencing gold medal here Sunday, soundly beating France 45-32 in the final to reaffirm its recent Olympic dominance in the event. Russia won the gold medal in Atlanta in 1996 with one member of the Unified Team that took gold in Barcelona on board. Continuing that lineage, the team here in Sydney included two members of the Atlanta combination -- Serguei Charikov and Stanislave Pozdniakov -- and dominated the competition in a similar fashion. The Russians led from the outset of the final as Charikov handed a 5-3 lead in the first match to Pozdniakov and he compiled a 5-2 victory over France's Julien Pillet to build a 10-5 lead that only grew in margin. By the final bout the Russians were leading 40-28. Cocky to the end, the Russians seemed annoyed when France's Mathieu Gourdain, the silver medallist in the individual sabre, twisted his ankle in the eighth bout, causing a long injury break and the arrival of substitute fencer Cedric Seguin. "It was a fairy tale to fight the final with such an advantage," Podzniakov said afterwards. "It was our main event for the competition and we feel great happiness. The last tussle put some psychological pressure on us, but not too much," said Alexei Frossine, the third member of Russia's team. In the bronze medal match, Germany overcame Romania 45-27 to take the bronze. Not figuring in the finals at all, was one-time team sabre power Hungary. The silver medallists in Atlanta were eliminated when they were lost 45-39 to the Russians in the quarter-finals. The Hungarians won every Team Sabre title between 1928 in Amsterdam and the 1960 Olympics in Rome before falling out of the medals in Tokyo in 1964.
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