Foil, en plein Italy: men’s team world champions

World foil speaks Italian.

After Friday’s overwhelming success of the women foilists, who returned to the roof of the world, on Saturday the foilists were no less impressive and gave Italy its second rainbow gold and eighth medal of the Cairo 2022 World Championships.

In Egypt, the team composed of Daniele Garozzo, Tommaso Marini, Alessio Foconi, and Guillaume Bianchi overcame the United States 45-39 in the final in a hard-fought match resolved in the crucial moments by a Marini in great form, also on the strength of his individual silver medal win.

CT Stefano Cerioni’s boys had skipped the round of 64 as the No. 1 seed and made their debut on Friday with success against Uzbekistan 45-31, and then also got the better of Brazil 45-17. On Saturday they clinched a place among the best four teams in the review after beating Korea 45-31 and then, in the semifinals, overcame Japan 45-33 and took revenge against the Japanese who at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games eliminated them in the quarterfinals.

The world title confirms the dominance manifested in the season: the Italian foilsmen, who lead the international rankings, have already won European gold and, of the four World Cup events held, have managed to win three and place on the third step of the podium in the other.

Today’s result also lengthens the Italian national team’s trail of results: it has been since 2013 that Italian men’s foil has always medaled in the rainbow event and this is the fifth success in the last seven editions (gold in 2013-2015-2017-2018-2022, bronze in 2014 and 2019).

“It was a beautiful day,” said Daniele Garozzo, “and it showed that we are a team: when one is doing a little less the other comes out. We had a beautiful run, 3 wins out of 4 in the World Cup, European Championships, World Championships … better than that it was hard to imagine.”