Sharon Jones with all the news
This weekend, regular guest fencer Ethan Dakin was fencing in Trekanten, Denmark and came away with a gold medal.
In the younger year of the U12s at the Trekanten Nordic-International Championships, he started well with 4 wins out of 5 against fencers from Denmark and Sweden. The second round of poules didn't go quite so well, with 2 wins and 3 defeats, but it was still good enough to send him into the direct elimination round as 8th seed. He had a bye in L32 and went into L16 against Mate Lacko, a Hungarian fencer. This competition is pretty much unique in having bouts to 15 points in this age group, so it was a new experience for Ethan in a competition. However, in a nail biting match he came away with a 15-14 win. His L8 fight was against top seed Claus Lund of Denmark. Ethan had lost to him in both poule rounds, but took a more defensive approach to take the match to time, with the score at 10-7. The semi final and final were much less tense affairs, with Ethan beating Swede Hannes Kasa 15-5 and then Dane Frode Vaaben to take the gold.
Sunday brought the opportunity to fence in the U14 competition (so fencers up to 3 years older and fencing with longer foils). Ethan put up a very respectable performance in the single poule round, winning 3 and losing 3, with 2 of the defeats being 4-5 scores. The highlight was inflicting the only loss on fellow British fencer, Ethan Zazo of ZFW in London. Ethan went into the DEs as 18th seed and had a bye in L64. He then faced tall, spidery French fencer, Charles Frebault, but went out 9-15, finishing in a very respectable 18th place, also being the highest placed of the U12 fencers in this competition.