Italy golden again in Olympic team foil

Despite not winning a medal in the individual men's foil tournament, Italy captured gold Sunday in the Olympic team event. Andrea Cassara, Andrea Baldini and Valerio Aspromonte are all ranked among the 10 best in the world, but they were shut out of the medals in the individual competition. As a group, however, they put together a 45-39 finals victory over Japan, which made an unexpected appearance in the gold medal match. Italy became the first country to win the men's team foil event in two straight Olympics since the Soviet Union did so in 1960 and 1964. Japan won its first Olympic team fencing medal in history, edging Germany 41-40 in the semifinals. Italy routed the United States 45-24 in the semifinals and Germany then knocked off the Americans for the bronze medal.