Edoardo Mangiarotti
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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.
| Olympic medal record | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Men's Fencing | |||
| Gold | Berlin 1936 | épée Team | |
| Gold | Helsinki 1952 | épée Individual | |
| Gold | Helsinki 1952 | épée Team | |
| Gold | Melbourne 1956 | Foil Team | |
| Gold | Melbourne 1956 | épée Team | |
| Gold | Rome 1960 | épée Team | |
| Silver | London 1948 | Foil Team | |
| Silver | London 1948 | épée Team | |
| Silver | Helsinki 1952 | Foil Individual | |
| Silver | Helsinki 1952 | Foil Team | |
| Silver | Rome 1960 | Foil Team | |
| Bronze | London 1948 | épée Individual | |
| Bronze | Melbourne 1956 | épée Individual | |
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
The Helsinki Games in 1952 were the crowning glory for the Mangiarotti brothers. Against a record field of 76 competitors Edoardo Mangiarotti won the 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.
The record created at the Helsinki Olympics by the Mangiarotti brothers is 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 for the epee team event and a silver for the individual to give the family a remarkable six medals.
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 Giuseppe 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.
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.
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.
[edit] See also
In 2003, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) awarded Edoardo Mangiarotti with a Platinum Wreath, with a document which stated that: " Edoardo Mangiarotti's total of 39 Gold, Silver & Bronze Medals in Olympic & World Fencing Championshipsnot only earns him the distinction of being the greatest Fencer in that sport's history, but also distinguishes him as the most decorated athlete in ALL Olympic Sports in the history of the Olympics.
In 1978, Sig. Mangiarotti (who's official, Papal Title is :'Caviliere di Gran Croce-Knight of the Great Cross; a title handed out by the Vatican with its origins dating back to the Crusades), took under his wing his last student, Maestro Stuart Phillip Kaufman of the Marin Fencing Academy of San Rafael, California (see.www.marinfencing.com); with the express purpose to carry on the technique created by his father, Giuseppe (which he began formulating in the early-1900s while the Fencing Master to the Royal Court of Vittrio Emmanuele-Italy's last King). The two had met in 1977, in San Francisco, while Maestro Mangiarotti was holding a 5-City Fencing Clinic in the United States and subsequently accepting Mr. Kaufman's request for more time to learn the technique.
This technique:"La Scoula di Spada Italiana Moderne"-"The Modern School of Italian Sword" was the technique which propelled Sig. Mangiarotti to the many subsequent titles he was to earn, but also did likewise for older brother Dario (although to a lesser degree); while becoming the backbone of the Italian Fencing Federation's (FIS) Nation-wide teaching of Foil and Epee from the mid-1900's. (see: FIS training manual for La Spada {The Epee}circa.1970s-dedication page w/Giuseppe Mangiarotti's photo)
With his successful certification in 1978 by Edoardo & Dario Mangiarotti, after a Six-Month private study period with the brothers at their Milan, Italy-based Fencing School:"Circolo della Spada; Mangiarotti, Maestro Kaufman became the sole Fencing Master in the Western Hemisphere so licensed to carry on the propagation of their father's technique.
Retuning to Italy in 2003, Maestro Kaufman travelled back to the Mangiarotti's School for a 2-week training period in preparation for his attendance at the June, 2003 examinations of "L'Accademia Nazionale di Scherma"- The Italian Academy of Arms, for his formal title of "Maestro di Scherma". After securing this title, Maestro Kaufman became the 1st American since Maestro William Gaugler of San Jose, California in 1976 to earn this title from L'Accademia. Upon returning to Milan with his Diploma from L'Accademia in hand, the Mangiarotti Brothers then conferred onto their-now-50 year-old prodigy, a new "Certification of Merit" (now, also signed by Maestro Edoardo's daughter, Carola, also a nationally-recognized former fencer for Italy in her own right and now, in her capacity as the current Director of the family school, Circolo della Spada;Mangiarotti); which gives Maestro Kaufman further license to not only instruct students, but also license to train and, in turn, certify other Fencing Instructors with the purpose of the further and continued propagation of the "Mangiarotti Technique."
In July, 2004, Maestro Kaufman, in a joint effort with Maestro Marco Romano, President of L'Accademia Nazionale di Scherma of Naples, Italy, wrote the first-ever English-language, written-portion of the Fencing Master's Examination; for the use of all future English-speaking candidates going to Naples for their titles of Maestro di Scherma. (All of the Diplomae/Certifications of Maestro Stuart Phillip Kaufman can be viewed at the Marin Fencing Academy website: www.marinfencing.com)
The Fencing School of the Mangiarotti Brothers would consistently turn out future members of the Italian Olympic Team(s) for years to come; including Bellone in Sr. Epee (Olympic & WOrld Championship titles-1970-80s) and Mazzoni (Jr. World and Olympic Championship titles-1970s-his recent Epee Team participation in Athens), to name a couple.
