Weapon(s) Sabre Name Vadim Gutzeit | Hand right-handed Role Olympic athlete | |
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Full name Vadim Markovich Gutzeit Born 6 October 1971 (age 52)
Kiev, Ukraine ( 1971-10-06 ) | ||
Vadim Gutzeit (also Vadym Guttsayt or Vadym Markovich Hutsayt; Ukrainian: Вадим Маркович Гутцайт; born 6 October 1971 in Kiev) is a Ukrainian sabre fencer, team Olympic champion in 1992 and bronze medal in the 1991 World Fencing Championships. He has been an international referee for the FIE since 2002.
Career
Gutzeit took up fencing at the age of ten. He won the Ukrainian national championship when he was fifteen. In 1988 he became USSR Junior Champion. He earned a gold medal in the Junior World Championships in 1989 and 1990. A year after, he took a silver medal in the same event, as well as an individual bronze medal and a team silver medal in the senior World Championships.
He took part in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona for the Unified Team and won the gold medal with them. He also competed in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, finishing 6th in the individual sabre event after being defeated 14–15 in the quarter-finals by Russia's Stanislav Pozdnyakov, who eventually won the competition. Gutzeit took part in his third Olympiads at the 2000 Sydney Games. Seeded No.13, he lost 10–15 in the table of 16 to Domonkos Ferjancsik of Hungary. In the team competition, Ukraine finished 6th.
Gutzeit, who is Jewish, took part in the 2001 Maccabiah Games and won the silver medal in the individual sabre. He was defeated in the gold medal final by Sergey Sharikov of Russia. Gutzeit won the gold medal at the 2005 Maccabiah Games, reaping revenge over Sharikov of Russia, as Ukraine also won the team sabre gold medal.
Gutzeit became in 2002 an international referee in foil and sabre for the International Fencing Federation. He has since officiated in many major competitions, including the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. He is also vice-president of the Ukrainian Fencing Federation since 2000 and a member of the executive committee of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine since 2004. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the FIE in 2013.