German fencer Heidemann Britta beat Shutova Lubov of Russia 15-8 Saturday to win the individual event of the 2008 FIE women's epee World Cup.

Another Russian Sivkova Anna and China's Zhong Weiping were jointly placed the third after the contest held in Nanjing, the capital city of eastern China's Jiangsu Province.

"Now I have surpassed Chinese fencer Li Na to become number one in world ranking and I look forward to good performance at the August Beijing Olympic Games," said Britta in quite fluent Chinese.

In the semifinals, Lubov defeated Anna 15-10 and Britta stunned Zhong 8-1.

Britta, who is also a university student, said she regards China as a very competitive rival in the team event, which was scheduled for Sunday.

In women's epee team event of the 2008 World Championships last month in Beijing, France won gold medal while China and Germany took the silver and bronze respectively.

Ten gold medals will be contested by fencers at the upcoming Beijing Games. Of the 12 categories of fencing tournament, women's epee team and men's foil team will not be included in the 29th Olympics.

(Xinhua News Agency May 18, 2008)