France's 'papy' grabs second Fencing gold

Baku, June 27, AZERTAC Ivan Trevejo grabbed his second Fencing gold of the European Games by guiding France towards the men's team epee title. The 43-year-old Trevejo, who won a silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games for Cuba, completed a remarkable comeback after nearly a decade out of the sport when he won the individual epee title in Baku. The naturalised Frenchman said he was "surfing a wave" of success after his country's comfortable 45-32 victory over Russia together with Yannick Borel, Ronan Gustin and individual bronze medallist Daniel Jerent. Russia had individual silver medallist Sergey Khodos in their ranks, but the left-handed Trevejo showed superb form throughout and scored the winning hit against the Russian in the final leg. "I'm surfing the wave now and I just want it to continue this way," said Trevejo, who is affectionately known as 'papy chulo' by team-mate Jerent. "Then I'm confident that it will help me a lot to achieve my goal, which is the Rio Olympics in 2016." Italy took the bronze medal after a controversial protest that was the talk of the Crystal Hall. The Swiss thought they had beaten Italy 39-38 halfway through a sudden death minute when Michele Niggeler secured a hit on Italy's Marco Fichera. But the Italian launched an official protest, claiming that a full minute of sudden death needed to be completed because the referee had put the bout into a "non-combative" situation. This happens when officials feel the fencing is too defensive. The Italian protest was upheld. When Niggeler and Fichera returned to action after a 20-minute break for the heated discussions, Fichera turned the match around for a 44-40 Italian victory.