Ed stars in the GB under 23 Championships
Some great results to report.
Ed won a bronze medal in the GB U23 Championships, while James made 13th place. Held at the Leon Paul Centre in London, this counted for U20 ranking points, so was keenly contested by 42 juniors, cadets and a few U23s.
The seedings for the poules were based on senior rankings so threw up a few poules of death. Ed's was one of these. He kicked off by beating U20 fencer Matthew Jerome of Salle Boston in London 5-3, in a slightly nervy start, then demolished 4th ranked U17 Douggie Ashby, of St Benedicts in London, 5-0. He followed this up with a 5-1 win over Ronnie Devitt of Cyrano in Essex. a 2-5 defeat to Cieran Archer of Newham Swords in London (bronze medallist and GBU20 squad regular) followed. Finally, Ed lost 3-5 (after being 3-1 up) to Dominic De Almeida of Fighting Fit in London - selected for the U20 team at the European Championships and recent ,member of the GB senior squad in Paris. Ed was ranked 15th after the poules. Meanwhile James comfortably beat Cameron Baxter-Allen of Millfield School 5-1, also beating Joe Kerr of Cocks Moor Woods (and former Sheffield Buccaneer) 5-0, and 6th ranked cadet Matthew Abrahams of ZFW in London 5-3. James lost 3-5 to Sebastian Monnet of Salle Boston,, 0-5 to Alexander Jones of Salle Kiss in Manchester and 4-5 to Jacob-Forey Miller of Salle Oxon. Forey-Miller, as 33rd seed, went on to beat Monnet, the 1st seed, 15-13 in an exciting L32 match. James went into the DEs as 20th seed.
Both the boys had byes to L32. Ed had a comfortable 15-6 win over tall left hander Owen Grosvenor of PDFA in Hertfordfshire. Meanwhile, James faced Matthews Abrahams again. James led comfortably for most of the match, but Abrahams is good at catching up a deficit and at 14-14 it was anyone's match. James bravely attacked and got a single light for a well deserved victory. His L16 match was tougher, against Welshman Celyn Lewis, who was on a roll and James on this occasion wasn't able to break him down. Ed faced 2nd seed, 4th ranked U20 fencer and current GB U20 champion, Sebastian Pallier of Fencers Club London. Ed attacked and went 0-1 down. At 2-2, Ed changed tack and took the lead. Ed went into the first break 9-6 up and took a further 6 points to Pallier's 3 in the second period to give him a 15-9 win, notwithstanding Pallier's call for arm judges. Ed's L8 fight was against Isaac Jolley, of Chichester Fencing Club, one place higher than Ed at the top of the cadet rankings and 15-14 winner of their last encounter in December. Ed had a point to prove and prove it he did, in an attritional match going almost to time, with both fencers changing their foils several times and requesting a move to another piste with better connectivity. Ed once again took the lead early on and was 11-6 up at the first break. Jolley came back to some extent in the second period, so that at the second break Ed was still leading, but by 14-11. Shortly after the start of the third period, Jolley called for arm judges, but they spotted no wrong actions on Ed's part. Jolley picked up a further point but Ed sealed the match with a calmly made attack and a single light. Pretty much shattered by now, Ed faced the eventual winner, Sam Finch of Fighting Fit in the semi-final. Ed had no consistent answer at this stage to Finch's confident parry ripostes, in particular, and his competition ended there.
As a result, Ed will move up to 11th in the U20 rankings and James will move up to 24th.
It's also great to be able to report on Ed's first overseas outing for the GB U20 squad. Called up after being named as a reserve, he made the journey to Aix en Provence from Newark independently, joining up with the rest of the 9 man squad at the hotel. This was a very strong competition of 189 top fencers. Ed (with a very low seeding at the start) won 3 and lost 3 of his poule matches. Highlights included a 5-3 win over the 12th world ranked junior, Gabriel Varas of Argentina and a 5-4 win over Ludwik De Bazelaire of Poland (who beat him comprehensively at the Eden Cup in December). None of the GB team won more than 3 poule matches and 3 didn't make the cut. Only one made L64. Ed got a bye to L128 and lost then 6-15 to Bogdan Barmakov, one of the top Russians. Ed's final placing was 115 and he finished 5th out of the 9 GB fencers. It was a fantastic learning experience and was a promising first overseas U20 performance - and with a better indicator from the poule (ie in the top 96) he would've got his first U20 international points.