Monday's final day of action at the Junior World Championships featured six U.S. collegians and produced some thrilling finishes, in the men's foil and women's epee competition. Most notably, Notre Dame's Gerek Meinhardt and Penn State's Miles Chamley-Watson led the United States men's foil team to a runner-up finish while ND sophomore Ewa Nelip and her Poland teammates lost the women's epee gold-medal bout on a touch in overtime (vs. Russia). The U.S. women's epeeists – featuring ND freshman Courtney Hurley and Princeton freshman Susannah Scanlan – won the third-place matchup, while Penn State freshman Nina Westman and her Sweden teammates ended up in eighth place.
Meinhardt went 57-48 (+11) in touches and Chamley-Watson was 47-44 (+3) during the four U.S. men's foil matches on Monday, which included wins over #18 Egypt (45-38), #10 Japan (45-26) and #2 Russia (43-42), plus the gold-medal loss to top-ranked Italy (45-34). Meinhardt and Russia's Dmitry Zherebchenko traded 12 touches in the ninth and final round of that semifinal showdown, with Meinhardt then scoring the final point in overtime.
Check back to the CF360 blog later tonight for complete details from today's action.