Excellent results for the Fernwood two
This weekend's competition - the U17 International at Pisa - possibly ranked as the most successful day ever for Fernwood's fencers. James finished in 31st place and Ed in 32nd place from 162 fencers and a very strong field - the only GB fencers to make L32. To put it into perspective, in L32 there were 15 Italians, 12 Americans, 1 Roumanian, 1 Greek, 1 Frenchman - and 2 lads from Nottinghamshire!
It all started much less promisingly. In his poule, James narrowly beat Belgian Charles Vandenbulcke, lost to Italians Gianmarco Galvani and Leonardo Munaretto and got a couple of points off world number 1 and competition winner, American Andrew Machovec. He finished by beating Australian Yves Fontaine 5-2. That left James seeded 103 for the DEs. Ed, as in Moedling, had a bad attack of nerves and it showed in his fencing. He beat Italian Oliver Genovesi 5-4, losing to American Ashton Daniel, Spaniard Alejandro Garcia Moreno, Italian Matteo Morini and Indian Anaya Lev Chadha. His only other win was against Greek Iasonas Geiger. It's fair also to say that one of the two referees in the poule was underwhelming, to the extent that one of Ed's opponents apologised at the end of their fight. Ed went into the DEs as 113th seed.
Things turned around spectacularly from here. Ed commented after the poule that he was going to fight his way through and ruin someone's day - and so he did. In L128, facing the 15th seed, Italian Tommaso Martini, he stormed ahead from the start, while making it difficult for Martini to attack him - a 15-6 win followed. Meanwhile, James was facing the 26th seed, Roumanian Alexandru Sirb. This was a much closer affair, but James came through with a 15-13 win. The boys were amongst the 6 British fencers from 15 who made it through to L64.
James then faced Hungarian Mateja Nedeljkovic, who has made to L64s and a L32 this season in international competitions. James fell behind midway through the fight, relying on counterattacks. However, he started parry riposting and came back strongly, winning 15-11 to take him into L32. Ed's L64 opponent was American Noah Condiff, from Philadelphia. They were fairly evenly matched, in an engrossing fight, with the lead changing hands several times. Ed's defensive work was excellent, drawing Condiff into the attack. The result remained unpredictable almost to the end. Ed made the crucial breakthrough, taking the score to 14-11 and the end of the first period. Condiff pulled one back, but Ed finished off the match when Condiff attacked, Ed hit him with a remise, at the same time going backwards and blocking out his opponent's blade to prevent a hit. A super finish.
James then fought Italian Gabrieli Cangelosi, ranked 7th after the poules and something of an unknown quantity. James matched him hit for hit to 12-12. The referee then surprisingly interpreted James's point in line attack as his looking for the blade and awarded the next point to his opponent, who then took the next two hits to win 15-12. Ed faced the very tall Italian Tommaso Marini. He not only won bronze at the Cadet World Championships last year, but also won bronze at an U20 world cup in Budapest this season. It was going to be tough and Ed lost several straight points attacking and losing out to Marin's height and excellent bladework. Eventually Ed worked out what to do, stopped attacking and started winning hits. At the end of the first period it was 3-11. Ed then picked up 6 points to Marini's 4 in the second period, which was encouraging.
All in all, a great day. We understand that this takes Ed up from 4th to 2nd place in the U17 rankings and James from 10th to 5th. Ed still has opportunities to improve his placing; this is James's final ranking for the season. Ed finished last season in 15th place and started this season in 7th place. James finished last season in 24th place and started this season in 12th place. Particularly given the strength of their cohort, this has been a fantastic final season at U17 level.
