Fernwood Sword Club
It was a pretty good day at the office for both Ed and James at the GB Junior (U20) Championships at Nottingham University. From 73 fencers, Ed finished 6th and James finished 11th. There are another 2 years of U20 Championships to go at after this year.
Having spent Saturday refereeing in the U17 Championships, Ed blitzed his poule of seven fencers, starting with a confident 5-2 win over Will Yun-Farmbrough of Salle Boston in London. There then followed a 5-3 win over Oliver Nash of Sutton Coldfield, a 5-2 win over Jonathan Connery of Northern Ireland, a 5-1 win over James Kloss of Russell Swords of Cardiff, a neat 5-1 win over GB Cadet Ben Attias of Sallle Oxon (his best ever poule win over Ben) and Ed finished off with a stylish 5-0 win over the poule's second Owen Grosvenor of Paul Davis Academy in Hertfordshire.
Meanwhile, James was dominating the fights that he did win - a 5-2 win over Jay Williams of Salle Oxon, a great 5-1 win over Kiron Austin of Dragon in Cambridge, a 5-1 win over left hander Oscar Plant of Millfield School and an awesome 5-0 win over Dominic De Almeida of Fighting Fit in London - last year's U20 silver medallist and a GB senior fencer. James was unlucky to lose 3-5 to awkward left hander Rafael Rhys Polllitt of Fencers Club London and 4-5 on priority to Cameron Evans, US fencer and bronze medal winner the previous day in the U17 competition.
Ed came out of the poules as second seed and James as 17th seed.
Ed had a bye in L64, James faced left hander and Northern Irish fencer,Jonathan Connery He fell behind consistently and it looked like he would go out in L64. However, James did brilliantly to pull the rabbit out of the hat and dominated the last several points to run out a 15-12 winner.
Ed faced Leiden Quelch of Salle Oxon. Quelch had beaten Brij Gautam of Salle Paul in L64 - Brij had beaten Ed in the U17 final last year........But Ed stepped up and came out a comfortable 15-4 winner. Meanwhile, James played a blinder, beating erstwhile fellow GB cadet squad member Anton Fenyk of Lazlos in Durham 15-4 to book his place in L16.
Ed then faced his good friend and fellow GB cadet squad member Jacob Forey-Miller of Salle Oxon in L16. The boys traded hits fairly equally until Ed pulled ahead to register a 15-8 win. James faced first seed Matthew Abrahams of ZFW in London. They last met in London, when James came out a 15-14 winner. Matt prevailed this time, with a 15-10 win.
Ed then faced Samuel Wilson of Salle Boston in London. The two have fenced each other infrequently over the years in DEs, but never without incident. Ed struggled with some of the refereeing decisions today and perhaps did not do himself justice. Wilson came out a 15-11 winner.
All in all, the boys had a good day. Initial analysis seems to be that Ed has maintained 7th place in the U20 rankings (!) and James has moved up a few places (possibly to 16th).