New Season gets Underway
The new season has started again for competitions. The summer hasn't been an idle one, though, with training camps in Edinburgh for Arthur Eakin and Ethan Dakin and in Polanica-Zdroj in Poland for Ed Howlett.
Yesterday saw the challenging Leon Paul Summer Open in London, including a number of very good foreign and domestic fencers. Ed Howlett's first competition of a new season invariably includes a few surprises as he gets back into gear. This one was no exception. He lost his first two matches in the poule, including a 3-5 loss to GB senior squad fencer, Glen Ostacchini. This was followed up by 4 straight wins, including a tidy 5-0 victory over Darius Namdar, who had beaten Ostacchini and a 5-4 win over Scottish Commonwealth team bronze medallist, Chris Mollard. Ed went into the DEs as 13th seed. After a bye in L64, he faced a very tough opponent in former GB senior champion and multiple Commonwealth medallist, Keith Cook of Salle Holyrood. Ed fenced very well and worked extremely hard to create and extend a lead. It looked halfway through the match as if Keith would produce a comeback but Ed kept his nerve and his focus and finished with a 15-9 win. He wasn't quite so sharp in his L16 match, losing 7-15 to fellow U20 GB fencer Isaac Jolley, who went on to win a bronze medal as the only British fencer on the podium. 10th place from 47 fencers was a decent start to the season.
Ed was not the only one to pull off an impressive victory in L32. Fernwood guest fencer and Nottingham University student Alexander Jones beat GB senior squad fencer Kamal Minott 15-12, also going out in L16 to finish 16th.