Edoardo Mangiarotti

Edoardo Mangiarotti has won more Olympic titles and World championships than any other fencer in the history of the sport. His name is coupled with 21 titles including six Olympic individual and team gold, five silver and two bronze medals from 1936 to 1960.

Related Topics:
Olympic - Fencer - 1936 - 1960

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• 1936 Team epee gold
• 1948 Team foil silver
• 1948 Team epee silver
• 1948 Individual epee bronze
• 1952 Individual epee gold
• 1952 Team epee gold
• 1952 Individual epee silver
• 1952 team foil silver
• 1956 team epee gold
• 1956 team foil gold
• 1956 individual epee bronze
• 1960 team epee gold
• 1960 team foil silver

Fencing is one of the original sports from the 1896 Games. Electronic scoring equipment was introduced in 1936 in the epee events when Mangiarotti won a gold medal with the other members of the Italian team. He consistently won each epee event and was second only to expert Christian d?Oriola in the foil events. On a points for and against basis in international competition, Mangiarotti was the most successful fencer in history.

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Edoardo Mangiarotti was born into a famous fencing family on April 7 1919. Giuseppe Mangiarotti a Milanese fencing master and 17 times national epee champion, planned his son?s championship career and molded him into an awkward opponent by converting a natural right-hander to a left-hander. Dario Mangiarotti, older brother of the great Edoardo, won the world title in Cairo in 1949 and a gold and two silver in the Olympics.

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Edoardo was a national junior foil champion at the age of 11. He won a place in the Italian senior team at age 16 and competed in the 1935 world championships. The following year young Mangiarotti rewarded his father for his conscientious coaching with an Olympic team epee gold medal in the Olympics.

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In Paris, 1937, Edoardo Mangiarotti won a gold medal in a World Championships team event. The next year in Czechoslovakia he finished second in the individual epee, won a bronze in the team epee and a gold in team foil. Even at such an early stage in his career, the young Mangiarotti showed the strong determination and personality that was to separate him from other international competitors in both foil and epee in the 1950s.

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At the 1948 London Olympics, Mangiarotti finished with a bronze medal in the individual epee and two team silver medals. Dario Mangiarotti could not compete because of an injury.

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In 1949, Dario won the individual epee World Championship in Cairo while his younger brother participated in the winning epee and foil teams. Two years later Edoardo forged to the top in individual epee by winning the world championships in Stockholm.

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The Helsinki Games in 1952 were the crowning glory for the Mangiarotti brothers. Against a record field of 76 competitors Edoardo Mangiarotti wont eh Olympic epee individual gold medal with decisive style. After a somewhat shakey start in the final he ran out the winner with seven victories. His brother had won the silver from Switzerland?s Oswald Zappelli, who had beaten Edoardo for the silver medal in the previous Olympics.

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The record created at he Helsinki Olympics by the Mangiartti brothers in unlikely to be beaten. While Edoardo secured two gold medals for the epee team and individual titles and two silver medals for the foil team and individual, his brother won a gold medal fo rhte epee team event and a silver for the individual to give the family a remarkable six medals.

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By the Melbourne Olympics, Edoardo was a fraction past his best but he refused to leave the international arena without a fight. In the individual epee, Australian spectators were treated to a dramatic finale. Three Italians finished equal first, each with five wins and two losses. A barrage had to be held to sort out the medal winners. The drama heightened after the first section of the play off when Mangiarotti, Carlo Pavesi and Guiseppe Delfino all had one win and one loss. The second barrage broke the deadlock; Mangiarotti tired towards midnight and lost both his bouts, then Pavesi beat Delfino to clinch the gold medal. The Italians had a clean sweep of the medals with Mangiarotti taking the bronze. As compensation he won gold in both epee and foil team events.

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At the 1960 Games in Rome, Mangiarotti now a 41 year old, and the oldest on the Italian team, won a silver medal in the team foil behind the Soviet squad that boasted individual champion Zhdanovich. The Italian epee squad which included Mangiarotti and individual gold medalist Delfino won the team event from a brilliant British squal lead by Bill Hoskyns the 1958 World individual champion.

Related Topics:
1960 Games - Soviet

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Mangiarotti retired in 1961 and left the Olympic fencing arena as the greatest combined epee and foil fencer the world had ever seen. His participation in world and Olympic championships spanned 25 years and resulted in an amazing 40 top three placings. This five time Olympian was awarded a Bronze Olympic order in 1977.

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