The beginning of the Junior European Championships in Naples was made by the fencers of the Junior Dueling Sword and the Junior Epee and Epee.
For Greece, four fencers in each weapon took their place on the slopes of Naples. In addition to the eighth place of Alina Kouroussi, Vassilis Tsokas and Nikos Passias made good appearances, reaching the top 32 in the youth dueling sword. In total, nine of our country’s fencers advanced from the pool stage to the knockout matches.
Alina Kouroussi passed without a fight to the best 32. Houzouri was defeated 15-10 by Georgia’s Alexandra Kuvaeva and Tsokaropoulou was defeated 15-9 by Ukraine’s Ana Suvorova. The two gymnasts of Giorgos Tsouroutas won the 47th and 48th place in the competition.
Kouroussi also defeated the Italian Diletta Fusetti in the round of 32 with 15-11 and passed again, as in 2023 (as ninth), to the best 16 of the competition. She then easily prevailed against Germany’s Cissan Herbon 15-7 and advanced to the quarterfinals. There, the 15-year-old “bent” with 15-13 after a great battle against No. 1 on the board and No. 1 of the European junior ranking, the Italian Vitoria Mozzi.
The Italian, in fact, then went on to win the European title.
The Yannis Notara athlete took eighth place in Europe and surpassed last year’s ninth place by one place, while she still has one year left in the junior age category.
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