Philippine-born Ivorian Maxine Esteban will be marching to the Paris Olympics oozing with confidence after jacking up her world ranking to No. 27 in the world following an impressive finish in a continental meet recently.
In the list released by the International Fencing Federation late Saturday, the 23-year-old Esteban leapfrogged from No. 35 to No. 27 after clinching the silver medal in the African Fencing Championships in Morocco.
Esteban garnered 49.250 points to emerge as the best women’s foil fencer in Africa behind Yara Elsharkawy of Egypt, who tormented her in the gold medal match of the African tilt two weeks ago.
Esteban is competing in the Championnats Panaméricains in Peru that opened on Saturday before seeing action in the Summer Games that start on 27 July at the Grand Palais in the French capital.
“World No. 27!” Esteban said in a social media post shortly after the FIE made the announcement on the latest ranking.
“Thank you to everyone who helped me achieve this. To God be the glory!”
Reigning Olympic gold medalist Lee Kiefer of the United States topped the ranking with 276 points while four out of the top 10 spots were occupied by the members of the powerhouse Italian team in Olympic silver medalist Arianna Errigo at No. 2 with 242 points, three-time World Cup winner Martina Favarreto at No. 3 with 231 points, nine-time World Cup gold medalist Alice Volpi at No. 4 with 194 points, and Martinia Batini at No. 7 with 132 points.
Polish star Julia Walczyk-Klimaszyk is at No. 5 with 150 points while Anne Sauer of Germany is at No. 6 with 132 points.
Rounding out the top 10 are Jessica Zi Jia Guo of Canada at No. 8 with 131 points, Qingyuan Cheng of China at No. 9 with 119 points and Jacqueline Dubrovich of the United States with 116 points.
The lone Filipina bet in the Olympics, Samantha Catantan, is at No. 266 with 1.50 points.
The Penn State University star had already left for Venice to train with the Italian national squad for the Olympics.
From Venice, she will join the rest of the national delegation for another training camp in Metz before heading for the Summer Games.