Lis Rottler-Fautsch on her controversial 11-10 loss in the top 8 of World Championships:

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"Ok, so I was leading the whole fight than Moellhausen come back and it was 10:10 after regular time. We went to Sudden Death. She had priority. 18 seconds to the end, I started a lunge, Moellhausen blocked me and I tried to do a remesse. and did some forward steps and touche her on the knee. I took off my mask and was screaming because I thought I just wrote Luxembourg fencing history with a first medal at a World Championships. But then Moelhausen said it was the floor, the referee looked at the video like for 1 minute. It was an endless time for me. then he came back and said the touch was on the ground, so no touch. I asked for DT he said impossible because he said it was a video decision. I was stunned. couldn't understand his decision. he said he would give me a card if I don't go back to piste now.

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So I said to myself, ok keep calm, do the next touch and everything will be okay. But then Moellhausen did a fantastic attack I wasn't expecting and she went on the semi-finals. At that moment, I was so frustrated. I couödnt believe that a bad referees decision cost me a medal on the world championship. First I thought, okay, perhaps I was wrong, perhaps I didn't touch her. But then, a friend of mine showed me a video, she had made on her phone of the touch where you could see that it was impossible that I was ground.

 

I was sitting for 2 hours in the fencing hall. My coach as stunned as I was directly on the side. I had a lot of fencing friends and coaches who came to me. who tried to cheer me up. I mean 7th at the Worlds, it's not a bad result. it was my first time I was fencing in the top 8 at a World Championships. I had a horrible night. I couldn't sleep at all. The touch was frozen in my brain. I was thinking a lot about that fight this last month. Also because I had to explain it nearly every day what exactly happened. And the really nice word of people who told me I can be proud of my result.

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I think it was the hardest moment so far in my fencing history. I've lost already in bouts for a medal, like on the European Championship in Tbilisi.

But I was never so close. And I was thinking now a lot also about the points I lost in the Olympic qualification As I don't have a team, it is very hard to qualify for the Olympics. And with a medal, I would have had at least 20 points more and would be good in the race for a qualification place.

So you can imagine how hard it is. And I still haven't recovered from it ... because I still think it was a wrong decision of the referee.

I cannot understand why he said it was ground. But I have to live with it. And the only thing I can take from this fight is that when you have a 3 points lead, you have to get it home and not let I come to sudden death and that's what I'll be working on next season."