Chinese fencers seek 2 golds in London

After a 2-medal record at the Beijing Olympics, China's fencing team is coming back with a hope to win two or more gold medals in the 2012 London Olympics.

London Olympic fencing competitions are scheduled from 28 July to 5 August at ExCeL Exhibition Center. The International Fencing Federation (FIE) pushed for the inclusion of two more team events, but the International Olympic Committee voted to keep the current format of 10.

China will compete in nine out of the 10 events in London, including men's individual and team foil, women's individual and team epee, men's individual and team sabre, women's individual sabre, men's individual epee and women's individual foil.

Women's epee and men's foil: China's hope of gold

The world top ranked Sun Yujie and second ranked Li Na are seen as the biggest hope for the Chinese team. Together with world No. 8 Luo Xiaojuan and No. 16 Xu Anqi, Sun and Li formed a formidable team and claimed title at 2012 Asian Championships.

The Chinese women's epee team now ranks No.2 in the world with their old rival Romania ranking on top. Other competent opponents include Russia which beat Romania by a great margin in a recent game.

Being the consecutive men's foil team champion from 2010 to 2011, China expects to win a men's foil team gold in London.

Team members Ma Jianfei, Lei Sheng, Zhu Jun and Zhang Liangliang are all among world's top 40 with the exception of Zhang Liangliang. The Chinese men's foil team currently ranks at No. 2. The world No. 1 is the Olympic winner Italy.

Though the Italians failed to win the title in the 2011 World Championship foil team competition, team members Cassara Andrea, Aspromonte Valerio and Avola Giorgio managed a podium sweep in the individual event.

Men's sabre: on the recovery

After the eye-catching performance in Beijing, Olympic gold winner Zhong Man has been struggling. His world ranking falls to 25th but given his win at Moscow Sabre World Cup, Zhong was still given the ticket to London Olympic individual sabre.

Also in the individual event are world No. 12 Liu Xiao and No. 37 Wang Jingzhi. Their biggest opponents are Italy's reigning world champion Montano Aldo, German world No.1 Limbach Nicolas and South Korea's Gu Bongil.

Like Zhong, the Chinese men's sabre team did not perform well after 2008 and its world ranking was once out of top 10. China stands at No. 5 now. China's major opponents in the event are Russia, Germany, Italy and Belarus. Russia now tops the world rank and its key players Yakimenko Alexey, Reshetnikov Veniamin and Kovalev Nikolay are all in the top 10 list.

Women's foil: sole representative

Although Chinese women's foil team failed to make it to the London Olympic Games, the world 17th ranked Chen Jinyan managed to gain a ticket for London as the sole Chinese fencer in the women's individual foil event.

The biggest favorite in the event is Valentina Vezzali of Italy who is the first fencer in Olympic history to win three individual foil golds in three consecutive Games.

Men's epee and women's sabre: only in individual

Due to the rotation mechanism, men's epee and women's team competition were displaced at London Games.

World No. 18 Li Guojie is the only Chinese contester in the men's individual epee event. His biggest opponents include Estonia's world No. 1 Nikolai Novosjolov and 2011 world champion Paolo Pizzo of Italy.

In the women's individual sabre, Chinese star Tan Xue will be absent due to pregnancy. Her successors include world No. 5 Zhu Min and No. 9 Chen Xiaodong. Zhu Min finished third in Chicago Sabre World Cup while the champion and runner-up went to Ukraine's Kharlan Olga and two-time Olympic winner Zagunis Mariel of United States respectively.