Frenchman takes bronze in wheelchair fencing individual foil category B at London Paralympics

September 5, 2012

London, England&mdash; In Tuesday night's, at London's ExCeL North Arena 2, men's individual foil category B, Marco Cima of faced Alim Latreche of  in the battle for the bronze. Latreche took the medal in a closely-contested match.

The final score was 15 to 11, with Cima leading up until the score was 5 to 4 in his favour. At that point, Latreche took a point, tying the scores, and went ahead on the next point. Whilst Cima was able pull the match back to a tie on both 7-7 and 8-8, he was unable to regain the lead. During the match, Cima incurred a yellow card.

Following his bronze medal finish, Latreche told media: "It's my third Paralympic Games, but it's my first medal. I have been dreaming of this for a long time." He went on to say, "I was disappointed about my performance. He [Cima] was better then me. It's a relief I got this medal. I had to hold on to win." When asked about his plans following the Games, he responded: "This bronze medal is really keeping me motivated for the rest of the Paralympic Games. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. This medal is my reward for these Games but the competition doesn't end here."

Latreche competes again on Wednesday, in the men's individual epee event. Fencing at the London Games ends on Saturday, with medal bouts being held every day until then.