FE F E Individual Budapest GP 2016 Semifinal 02 podium ANDRYUSHINA RUS vs XU CHN

could probably you know number 100 could beat number one it really is very difficult to call things and she's having a great day she's in the back of a few good results recently so it's not out of totally out of nowhere shoe in Barcelona went out in the first round in the 64 to Leonora McKinnon so she's she's not unbeatable she's had some hiccups actually with very well yeah yeah I'm sure I'll say it again and on paper it looks like you should be the winner but they you can see it under Sheena's very well-balanced fencing starts on guard position she's very calm very small movement difficult to sort of panic her make her do any rash movements with her blade very neat. You were saying Andrew Sheena has come off some good results which has some good results here she knocked out her teammate number two Violeta Kolobova in the round of 16 and followed that up with a win over Sheena Lam of Korea in the world number 10 in the quarterfinals. I expect she wants her individual place in the women's game. That is exactly what she's fighting for. Ju is the Asian champion she's also a bronze medalist at the World Championships along with Bezbez back in Moscow but so far hasn't appeared on a podium this season. Now if you see that right and she there really showed determination and pushing through. Her first long lunge failed but she did what's called a reprise she went around the other side and continued with another re-lunge to hit Andrew Sheena in the end. So very impressive. Do you often see reprising in FK? Is that when you've lunged and your opponent's run away but not quite far enough and then you see the opportunity to do the back foot recovery effectively? You don't often see it. Usually you'll do a remise which is without bringing your back foot up and lunging again or you'll turn it into a flash attack. Actually doing a reprise is rare. I don't see it very often. But she does love them. They're great lunges and she loved doing them. As you saw she then followed that up with an accelerated step lunge. So it means she speeds up with the use of her step in favour of her attack effect. It's coming a bit of a trademark here of the Russian. This is a very upright on guard position. Very neat footwork. A bit of a scrappy one there. She must be angry. You can see from her body language there. She's hitting herself in the knee. She's done several goes from both fences. It looked to me that Xu there had actually picked up the blade and had control of the Russian's blade. You've got to never, never stop, never stop. That's better for America. So it's all about ranking points here for both of these fences with the Russian and Chinese qualified as teams for the Olympic Games. They're fighting for their places in the team. One would say that Xu has probably done enough to make that Chinese team. I expect so. I think that her place is more stable, more guaranteed than Andrushina in the Russian team. With Loganova, Chutova and Kolobova. And there are other strong Russians. I mean I think that I wouldn't be at all certain if I was Andrushina as I was on the team. So I'm sure she'll be really wanting this result. Well this result is going to count a long way as we see in the crowd there. Some of the great and the good of the International Fencing Federation when we return to the piste. The view that the coach will have looking down the piste to make Xu's end there. Looking down to Andrushina. Looks calm doesn't she? She looks really calm. Philip doesn't look too worried there. Just looking at the rankings now and Andrushina is actually the third highest ranked Russian on the world rankings. But we don't know how the Russians select their team. Some teams take the number one in terms of ranking and their ranking is not necessarily going to be the same as the international ranking. And she's not one of the youngest. They may have good care for taking younger fencers. She's not one of the most experienced at high level. Chutova has won a lot more championships than her. I'm not sure it would be certain. What about the likes of Tatyana Gudkova, double junior world champion. Well exactly. She's up and coming so she could be a threat as well. Well back to the action here. It's Andrushina who's trying to stake her claim on making that Russian team. But Anki Xu seems to have just found a little bit more balance and poise here. So we see that in the replay. That was an octave very firmly taken by the Chinese. I wouldn't like to be on the other end of that with a riposte firmly into the chest. So very decisive taking of the blade. She took that octave. Unfortunately Andrushina was running past her so she didn't quite get the riposte. So Mary's talking about octaves. She's talking about a line of a parry. No not at all. We need to hear these fencing terms and then explain them. But the octave parry is essentially a high line parry. Which is the upper part of your body defending your chest. And then in epee of course you've got to defend your legs as well. So you have these low line parries. Anything sort of below the belly button basically is what they're looking to do. An octave is one of those parries. So what you're essentially doing is blocking out, if you're a right hander, the low line to the right hand side. Anything coming at the front leg. For the sake of fairness, what's the other low line parry called? Septime is the other side. Correct. God staff Mary. The language of fencing has its origins in France. I'm sure you all know the 8th line. Number 8. So that was 8. It's good to see this on replay. Shu tried to engage and cease, disengage with the blade. A lot of terminology again. But the Russian managed to disengage faster to get the single. So quite complex blade movement. But finally she got it that time. She's pretending to go on one side of the blade and actually finishing her attack on the other side. That's great to see and talk about it while we're watching the replay. Talking about engaging means that one fencer is using their sword to get hold of their opponent's sword and take control of it. The disengage is where they then go underneath it. So you force. If I push against you, you're going to push back against me. And then I release and I can hit you. So there is some terminology in there. But if we get the slow motion replay, we get a chance to explain it. There's that Octave again for that low line taking of the blade. Beautifully done. She just looked like she was waiting for it. We'll see it here on the replay. She's waiting and that Octave going around and down with the sword in layman's terms. So she just waited for a little forward movement of the Russian. That was all it took to give her the cue to start her attack with Octave. In very simple terms, the engaging of the blade is just taking control of it long enough that you divert the point of your opponent's sword away from your target. Giving you a millisecond of advantage to get your point onto theirs. Well, I think it's more than that even. Because in Epee, you keep hold of their blade a lot of the time all the way through. You're simultaneously hitting them and stopping them hitting you all at the same time. Because the angle means that you've got control over their weapon the whole way through the hit. You'll probably see on the next slow motion replay. So effectively, not deflecting, but actually blocking them throughout your attempt to hit. Absolutely, yep. Sometimes the Russian is managing to get free of it. And that's when she's going to need doubles. But not always. We go into the second break here as we look at the Russian end of the piece. And what is the coach going to be saying here to Andrushina? I think he's going to be saying you've got to draw that Octave. So make her take that parry. Give her the blade and then deceive it. Go round him. Because she's very likely, the Chinese, is going to do the same thing. So give her what she wants. But then be one step cleverer. So you're saying that she should allow Zhu to take the blade or she should wait until she's trying to take it and then avoid? There are two options. I don't know what he's going to say. But he's going to be saying one of the two. Go round it directly and attack him. Avoid her taking the Octave. Or let her take it and then keep progressing with her holding her blade. Yeah, I've got you. I'm no expert here, but it looks to me that when Zhu goes, Zhu really goes. So is the first option there? You can. You need to really step in with it and do a seeding parry. Which is very technically difficult, especially at this level, with a hard, strong attack. So I think given their various physiques, the Chinese are stronger, bigger. I agree. I think it would play more into the Russian plan to do the disengage, avoiding the taking of Octave. Well, let's see what happens. Final three minutes of the second semi-final here in the Women's F.A. at the Budapest Grand Prix, and it's Anqi Zhu of China who's commanding things at the moment. But Androschina, that time using distance and going to a completely different area of target onto the top of the arm. So we'll have a look at this very much in replay. Direct attack from the Chinese, and a disengage straight to the shoulder from Androschina. So she perhaps predicted the Octave was not going to work this time, so China was one step ahead to changing moves early. But it didn't pay off. So they both now come out of the piece with different tactics. With a different plan, yeah. Based roughly on what happened in the previous round, but then somehow it was Androschina who sort of lucked out, if you like, and got the hit. She responded with instinct from lessons, really. She saw where Xu was going. She disengaged and went into it. So it was a very good reaction. And then another long attack from Xu, but it wasn't good enough to be a single. It was a one-two attack where you start off threatening one bit of the target and then change to another bit. So high-low she went there. Low, got it. So she just increased the complexity, if you like, of the attack. Trying to draw a block from the Russian in one line and then going to the now newly opened line. Exactly, which was actually the tactic I thought the Russian was going to do on the Chinese, but very clever fencing from Xu. Blocked out by Xu, but somehow Androschina managed to land on the foot Unlucky, actually. I would have thought they both went at the same time, but Androschina landed her. Yeah, it was just a miss, wasn't it? Yeah, it looked like she missed and then tried very quickly to bring the arm back and recover. And as you say, Remi replaced the attack or continued the attack, but just not quick enough. Not quick enough. She's clawed her way back into this, Androschina. Final period. Back to the beginning, really. Engaged in, so take the blade in one side and then disengage to the other side. It's the same as she was doing right at the beginning of the fight. But not necessarily the neatest of hits that time. Another slightly scrappy one. I think she's using her force and power. That's exactly what I would do if I were Xu. You need to really dominate the blade of the Russian. She definitely did that now. There we go. Absolutely impossible for the Russian to control the point when she's being blocked out by the Chinese attack. You mentioned seeding parries. Was that a seeding parry? Did she take the blade and then bind it round to another line? Yeah, I think you're right. Not a seeding parry, but a bind of the blade. Effectively taking it into one line and then pushing it round into the other. You need power for that. And great control, of course. Absolutely, and I think the Chinese's punishing training program looks like it's paying off in this fight. A double no good for Androschina here. And Xu is just one away from going into the gold medal match where she will meet Sarah Bezbez of Tunisia. And now the Russian looking to attack. And it's all over. Well, well done, Anqi Xu. And well done, Tatyana Androschina, who had a great day, but she's going to have to settle for the bronze medal, sharing it with her teammate Tatyana Luganova. We will see.