China and Kuwait win foil titles at Senayan

JAKARTA (JP): Huang Hina of China stopped the aggressive Park Sung-ae of South Korea 15-7 in less than six minutes to win the girls' individual foil competition at the 4th Asian Juniors and Cadets Fencing Championships at the Senayan indoor tennis stadium yesterday.

A cool and watchful Huang won the mind game from the onset after Park's loose bodywire delayed the bout by almost two minutes.

Park won the first few points through vigorous sword play and shouting. Huang, on the other hand, fought with a lady-in-waiting style.

She seemed passive, defending only when necessary. But suddenly her foil would lunge into her opponent's trunk to equalize the bout point by point.

After three minutes, the score stood was 6-5 for Huang.

After a minute break, Huang was unstoppable. She quickly soared 14 before a signal that the second three-minute period was near its end. Park managed to score one more point before Huang finished the duel.

The bronze medals went Seo Mi-jung of South Korea and Yuko Kumagai of Japan. Seo fell 14-15 to Huang and Yuko lost 10-15 to Park in the semifinals earlier in the day.

In the boys' foil competition, Shahrayen Abdelmoh of Kuwait won the gold medal after beating South Korea's Kim Woon-sung 15- 12 in a tight battle. Mir Mohammadi of Iran and Shinji Sakata of Japan took the bronze medals. Mir was beaten 7-15 by Shahrayen and Shinji lost 11-15 to Kim.

Today the championships will open with preliminary matches in both the junior men's epee and the cadet men's saber at 9 a.m., followed by the semifinals at 3 p.m. and the finals at 7.30 p.m.

Those fencing in the junior category must be 20 years or younger, while the cadets must be younger than 17. (arf)