Épée, Team, Women

France and Germany, World Champions in 1998 and 1999 respectively, failed to survive their opening matches. The beneficiaries from these early upsets were Russia and Switzerland. The Russian team survived close fought encounters against Germany and Hungary to reach the final whilst the lower seeded Swiss had a more comfortable passage to the final. Russia took an early lead in the final and maintained their advantage to win by a clear cut margin of 45 to 36 over Switzerland. Three of the four team members would return to successfully defend the title four years later in Athens. One of the quartet, Oksana Yermakova, was born in Estonia and appeared for the country of her birth at the Atlanta Olympics before making the switch to Russia in 1998. She had been voted Estonia’s Sportswoman of the Year in 1993.