Ed And James fly the flag
This weekend delivered a lot of useful fencing in Cabries (near Marseilles), with the boys representing GB in another U17 international - the 14th Coupe Mondial with 206 fencers. This time round it was Ed who delivered the stand out performance.
All the fencing in this competition was of a high standard, Last year, no GB cadets reached L64 - as well as the usual international stars, there were 60-odd unseeded or lower seeded French fencers - almost all awkward to fence. James had a tough poule. He was nervous in his first couple of fights, losing 3-5 to Thomas Pedro of Portugal and 2-5 to Gabriel Bonny of France - both fights he might otherwise have won. James did win 5-2 against Jonathan Lim of Singapore and 5-4 against France's Julien Eberhardt. He lost against top seed (after the poule) Dutchman Daniel Giacon and eventual silver medallist, Japan's Shimpei Matsubuchi.
Ed had a smaller poule of 6, again, which was irritating. His first match was against left hander Joseph McKenna of Philadelphia. 5-2 to Ed. Then a 5-1 victory against Italian Guiseppe Franzoni. Ed's third fight was a cagey 2-5 defeat against France's Hugo Soulier. The fourth a confident, attacking 5-1 against Maximus Tio of Singapore. Ed was ranked 84th and James10th. Ed had a bye to the L128. James fenced Kieren Lock of Singapore - taking an early lead, he eventually was unable to see it through and went out 10-15, finishing in a respectable 160th place.
Meanwhile, Ed had a bye to L128. He then faced Hugo Soulier again. It was a remarkably cagey fight, with the referee calling non-combativity towards the end of the first period and flipping it over into the second period. It was striking that four of the hits against Ed were red cards either for ducking the head, turning or going non-lead shoulder first. It would be fair to say that two of these were fairly contentious. Soulier took the lead with about 30 seconds to go n the third period. With about ten seconds to go Soulier was awarded a red card - some degree of justice. Into the priority minute (with Ed having priority), Ed defended superbly. With 7 seconds to go, Ed was on his back line and instinctively went for a low line counter attack. His opponent's blade went over Ed's shoulder. Attack Soulier, counter attack Howlett, touche. Scenes. Much cheering amidst the large GB crowd. Ed's next fight was against Tommasso Lombardi of Italy, who is an excellent fencer. Ed didn't prevail, losing 7-15. Ed finished 61st and was only one of 32 GB fencers to get through to L64, giving him extremely valuable international and domestic ranking points.
Many thanks are due here to Steven Williams of Salle Oxon, who kindly coached both Ed and James in their DEs after his fencers had been knocked out.
The next day was the team competition, seeded on the basis of Saturday's results. James was fencing for GB2 and had an uphill struggle. In a competition of 45 fencers they were seeded 39th. After plucky struggles against Denmark (the eventual bronze medallists) and Guadeloupe, they didn't make the DE round of 32 teams. Ed's team GB1 (with top ranked GB U17 fencer Isaac Jolley and number 4 Douggie Ashby) beat French team Meaux (whose results on Saturday had been very similar to our team) 45-37. They then beat a team from Mourans, in the Isere, 45-15. The boys went into the DE as 9th seeds. They went on to beat Paris Tour d'Auvergne club 2 with a very comfortable 45-27 win. The next fight was the stunner, with Singapore 1 - comprising a silver medalist and a bronze medallist and L32 from the Manchester cadet. These guys had beaten a very successful Lyon team and then Paris TA 1. The boys had a flying start with a 5-2 win from Douggie against Yeo. Isaac came out 5-6 versus their star fencer Au Eong. Ed beat Tan 5-2. By the 9th match, GB1 were 40-30 ahead. Only 5 points to go. Au Eong came out flying against Douggie.and reduced the deficit to a point. Douggie came good in the dying seconds of the match to score another couple of points to end the match 43-41 in GB's favour. L8. With a fight against USA1. They are good. Suffice to say that GB1 got around the same number of points as most of their opponents in the tournament, It's all good experience and the boys were discussing tactics afterwards for next time. 6th place from 45 strong teams is as good a GB U17 mens' foil result as we can remember, so we'll take that.
The boys are next in action on 10th December at the University of East London at the Newham Cadet Ranking Competition, when the GB teammates are back to being rivals.
Photo attached (courtesy of Judy Rutherford).