Yekaterina Igoryevna Fedorkina (russian: Екатерина Игоревна Федоркина; also spelled Ekaterina, born 29 March 1983) is a retired Russian sabre fencer, team world champion in 2004 and five-time European champion (team and individual).

Career

Fedorkina first took up rowing when she was ten years old after a rowing coach did a presentation of the sport at her school, but she found it boring. A school friend who was fencing suggested her own sport instead. Coach Galina Gashinskaya took an immediate interest in her after noticing she was left-handed. Despite early evidence of talent Fedorkina stopped training in sixth grade because of the harsh discipline, but Gashinskaya, who lived across the street, joined with her mother to badger her into coming back. After beginning with the

foil Foil may refer to: Materials * Foil (metal), a quite thin sheet of metal, usually manufactured with a rolling mill machine * Metal leaf, a very thin sheet of decorative metal * Aluminium foil, a type of wrapping for food * Tin foil, metal foil ma ...

Fedorkina moved to

sabre A sabre ( French: �sabʁ or saber in American English) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the light cavalry of the early modern and Napoleonic periods. Originally associated with Central European cavalry such as th ...

under the training of Gashinskaya's husband Oleg. Her first medal in a major event was a bronze medal at the 1999 Cadet World Championships in Dijon, followed by another bronze medal at the 2001 Junior European Championships in Keszthely and at the 2003 Junior World Championships in Trapani. She began fencing in the senior category in the 2002–03 season and climbed the podium in her first

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

competition with a bronze at the Moscow Grand Prix. That same year she was included in the Russian national team and with

Yelena Nechayeva Yelena Nechayeva (born 14 June 1979) is a Russian former fencer. She competed in the women's sabre events at the 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Bei ...

Sofiya Velikaya Sofiya Aleksandrovna Velikaya ( rus, Софья Александровна Великая, , ˈsofʲjə vʲɪˈlʲikəjə; born 8 June 1985) is a Russian sabre fencer. Velikaya is a former European champion (four-time individual, six-time t ...

and Nataliya Makeyeva she won in Bourges her first European medal, a team gold. In the 2003–04 season Fedorkina won a silver medal at the

European Championships The European Championships is a multi-sport tournament which brings together the existing European Championships of some of the continent's leading sports every four years. The inaugural edition in 2018 was staged by the host cities of Berlin, ...

in Copenhagen after ceding in the final to Poland's

Aleksandra Socha Aleksandra Anna Socha Shelton (born 30 March 1982) is a Polish sabre fencer, bronze medal in the 2003 World Fencing Championships, European champion in 2004, and European team in 2008. She represented Poland at the time. Career Socha was th ...

. At the

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

held for events absent from the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

programme, Russia won the title in women's team sabre after prevailing over the United States. The next year Fedorkina won the gold medal at the

in Zalaegerszeg. She took part in the team event at the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...

. Velikaya, Nechayeva,

Yekaterina Dyachenko Yekaterina Vladimirovna Dyachenko (russian: Екатерина Владимировна Дьяченко, also known as Ekaterina Diatchenko, born 31 August 1987) is a Russian former sabre fencer. Dyachenko represented Russia at the 2008 Summer ...

and Fedorkina lost in the quarter-finals to eventual Olympic champions Ukraine, and finished 5th after the classification rounds.

References

External links

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* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fedorkina, Ekaterina Russian female sabre fencers 1983 births Living people Olympic fencers for Russia Fencers at the 2008 Summer Olympics Sportspeople from Kaluga