England Youth Fencing Championships
The England Youth Championships took place at Hertford Sports Village over this weekend.
Headington were originally due to have five Fencers taking part, two Sabre, two Epee and one Foilist but a School trip clashed with the Sabre events and Miuccia and Shruti had to withdraw from U13 and U15 Sabre respectively. This left Headington represented by Martha in the U11 Foil and Hattie in the U13 Epee and Margarita in the U15 Epee.
Martha got off to a good solid start in what was her first ever fencing competition, ranked 14th overall after the initial poule rounds. But her inexperience began to show in the Direct Elimination rounds and she finished 18th overall – very respectable indeed for a first event!
Hattie also competed in her event on Saturday 29th June. She had a blistering first round – winning her poule outright and went into the Direct Elimination rounds as the second seed. She held this position until the quarter finals, losing out on a top eight medal position by one place. It was an excellent performance up against her peers – particularly as she has had little match practice since March this year.
On Sunday 30th June, Margarita took part in her first U15 Epee competition – using size 5 weapons. After a hesitant start she got into her stride and finished the poule rounds ranked 10th seed. She had a bye into the 32 and then comfortably won her next two Direct Elimination rounds which put her up against the second seed for a top place. In an incredibly exciting bout – the score see-sawing backwards and forwards – Margarita came back from 13 – 11 down to equalise at 14 all going into the final period. She kept her cool and won on last hit 15-14.
This took her into semi finals – where her 5.00 am start to the day began to really take its toll. She had beaten her opponent earlier in the day but by now, the legs had began to slow. Margarita was more than happy with her extremely well-earned bronze medal. Congratulations to all involved.
