Young Fencers Take Centre Stage in London

Spring has sprung for 2018 and the London Region Youth Championships have provided the stage for a host of London’s promising young fencers to strut their stuff fighting for the Region’s top spots and for their chance to fence in this year’s British Youth Championships finals.  And, once again, we’ve seen first class performances that hold out huge hope for the future of fencing across the capital.

Held over the first two weekends of March, our Saturday 3^rd at Sportsdock fell foul of ‘the Beast from the East’.  But Londoners are a staunch lot and, paradoxically, we had fewer no-shows than last year.  The second tranche, at St Benedicts, had no such problems.  In fact the Championships overall ran pretty smoothly.

More than 250 fencers entered.  Forty were already ‘fast-tracked’ for the BYCs [having won a bye last year] and a further 87 won through the London Championships to qualify.  So a total of 127 are set to represent themselves and London Region in Sheffield over the May Day bank holiday.  Last year London Region topped the points table.  No pressure there then!  And we wish each and every one of our fencers a successful and enjoyable tournament this year.

The Under 10s Epee BYCs took place in the last days of February and it was brilliant news for the Region there too. The top 4 places in the boy’s event went to London fencers, as did 3 of the top 5 places in the girl’s.  Full results are on the BF website.  Congratulations to everyone involved.  We look forward to seeing you next year.

Full results can be seen here

The last few days of January so it must have been the London Region Open Novice & Intermediate Competition. And it was!

 Sunday 28th, St Benedicts School, Ealing. Only a few days earlier we’d lost one of the arenas we’d booked so we were down by 4 pistes and had to close entries. And we’d had to disappoint 25 more fencers who wanted to join after the event closed. But with 86 entries already confirmed it was still our biggest N&I so far.

Fencers from Somerset and Southampton came. Fencers from Oxford and Chelmsford. Fencers from Lincoln, Canterbury, Maidenhead. And fencers from London on home turf. Familiar faces and new from all points of the compass but with one shared objective – a good days fencing in a friendly, welcoming environment.

Did all of them get what they came for? We hope so. And from the good humour, the exhaustion, the sweat, and the smiles around the place, we dare to think that lots of people went home happy. [Results below.]
 We can’t wait to see them back again and to welcome more new faces too. So why not keep an eye out for our future competitions.

On Monday 5 February we’ll publish details of our new ‘London Region Intermediate Championships’ scheduled for Sunday 29th April. Our next Open Novice & Intermediate will be in early July.

With more and more of the big Opens seeming to have disappeared from the calendar, London Region chooses to buck the trend and launch a new event to grow to fill the gap.

Scroll forward to Saturday 2 December, East London, and around a hundred fencers descend on Sportsdock for the first ever ‘London Region CAPITAL OPEN’. From as far as Truro, Dublin and Paris they come, each looking to top the tableau in one of the 6 weapon contests.

With a full team of experienced referees on hand from the get-go there’s absolutely no self-refereeing: every fencer’s able to concentrate entirely on their own game.

There’s some spare piste capacity too, so we run a Plate competition for the largest weapon, Mens Foil, and it’s well received by those knocked out in the first DE’s. In fact everything seems well received.

Hundreds of energetic matches, seven exciting finals, and seven awards presentations later, we start to head home. Fencers and organisers alike are tired. But we all seem happy-tired. And from the smiles and positive comments throughout the day it looks like things have gone pretty well for this, the inaugural event.

 So thanks to all who took part. We hope you had a good time. We hope you’ll come back next year. And we hope you’ll spread the word that the CAPITAL OPEN is a capital event in more than just its name.

In the meantime you might like to check the gallery to see whether you’re in one of the pics. And if you have others you’d like to send us we’ll try to put some of them up