Aleksandr Romankov

Sport: Fencing (foil)

Born: 7 November 1953; Korsakov, Sakhalin Region, Russian SFSR, USSR

Honors:

Honored Master of Sport of the USSR

Order of Friendship of Peoples

Order of the Badge of Honor

Medal for Labor Services (twice)

Career highlights:

Gold (team event), Olympic Games in Seoul, 1988

Silver (individual event), Olympic Games in Montreal, 1976

Silver (team event), Olympic Games in Moscow, 1980

Bronze (individual event), Olympic Games in Seoul, 1988

Bronze (individual event), Olympic Games in Moscow, 1980

Ten-time world champion in the individual and team events in 1974, 1979, 1982; in the individual event in 1977,1983 and in the team events in 1981, 1989

Seventeen-time champion of the USSR

Biography:

Alexandr Romankov was born on 7 November 1953 in Korsakov, Sakhalin Region. He enrolled at the fencing school in Minsk at the age of 11. Throughout his entire career he was coached by Ernest Asievsky.

Alexandr did not have major successes on the junior circuit. He made his debut at the World Youth Championships in Minsk in 1970 where he placed 12th. The following year, at the world championships in Chicago, he was sixth. It was a poor result for the Soviet team. Seen as unlikely to succeed, Alexandr was dropped off of the team. If it were not for Ernest Asievsky, under whose guidance Alexandr trained for almost thirty years, he would have quit sport long ago.

It was Asievsky who inspired the young man to prove his doubters wrong and to become a champion.

Big success came in 1973 when Romankov won the national championship and qualified for the USSR national team. The following year he competed in the world championships in Grenoble and stunned everybody with a win in the individual event.

After that victory, French journalists would say that he had revived the former glory of foil fencing, compared him to the legendary Edoardo Mangiarotti and Christian d'Oriola.

In 1976, Alexandr Romankov won his first Olympic medal in Montreal - silver in the individual event. Both Alexandr Romankov and Italian Fabio Dal Zotto reached the final round with 4 wins and 1 loss in the pool and had to play it out in the barrage which the Belarusian lost 1-5.

At the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, Alexandr Romankov, by then a multiple world champion, was a long-recognized No.1 on the Soviet team. In the run-up to the Games he pronounced the oath of the Soviet Olympians on Mamaev Kurgan at a meet-up of athletes in Volgograd.

In Moscow, the team of foil fencers stopped one step away from gold. Vladimir Lapitsky sustained a serious injury in the semifinal. He was pierced by a foil which narrowly missed the vital organs. He was replaced by less experienced fencer Ashot Karagian. Yet Ashot did well and was only one touch away from winning the very important match.

The USSR team had to settle for silver. Alexandr Romankov also won a bronze medal in the foil individual. The Olympic gold seemed to elude him. He had to wait for it to happen eight years.

Soviet athletes did not go to the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. A trip to the Games in Seoul in 1988 was also in question as the national team had little success, placed seventh at the world championships in 1987 and was not regarded an Olympic medal hopeful.

Yet, the Soviet team was victorious in Seoul in 1988. Alexandr Romankov also picked up an individual bronze.

Upon retiring from sport in 1992, Alexandr Romankov took up coaching.


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