More good results for OFC at this event in High Wycombe – all three of our fencers to enter won a medal!

U12 girls – Freya Leech, gold

U14 girls – Ava Tester, bronze

Men’s – Mark Leech, gold

Photo – Colin Tester

OFC had two teams at this event in Ealing, the foillist Forketeers of Nicole, Idalina, Martina and Liza, and the less inventively named Oxford Epee of Mark, Tim and Shaz.

The Forketeers were up against some very tough opposition all day. Meanwhile, the epeeists repeated their result of a few years ago, taking the gold medal.

Photo – Martina Zagaria

Congratulations to Freya, Ava and Vito, who took silver in the u14 épée.

Their only loss was a close one, and they dominated their remaining matches. Great individual performances and superb teamwork!

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OFC was invited to help set the scene for performances of Shakespeare at the reconstruction of the Rose Theatre at Blenheim Palace this summer.

Young and older fencers all participated with great enthusiasm, and it was a great opportunity to introduce a new audience to our sport.

Thanks to the actors and production team at the Rose for their support, and to all the fencers who took part.

Photos: Mark Leech and Anne Tester

Three OFC fencers took part in this competition held at St Gabriel’s School in Newbury. All came home with medals!

Martina Zagaria, on her return to competitions, won a well-deserved bronze in the women’s foil.

Anne Tester took gold in women’s epee, and some good victories in the mixed poule against all the male epeeists.

Mark Leech won gold in the men’s epee, going undefeated through the day, finishing with a very intense and close final bout.

Anne and Mark both qualify for the national GB Cup, to be held in Nottingham in June. Well done everyone!

OFC  was well represented at this demanding competition at the Leon Paul Centre in London, and brought home several medals to prove it!

Adrian Griffin – Category 2 foil gold, 5th in sabre (and qualification for the European teams tournament!)

Anne Tester – Category 1 epee gold (also a good performance against the Category 2 fencers when the groups were merged)

Mark Leech – Category 1 epee silver (to his utter astonishment)

Malcolm Allton – Category 3 epee 6th

Congratulations everyone!

OFC welcomed the Oxford University pentathletes for a second match on 19 March. This time there were five teams of two, and another lively and enjoyable evening’s fencing.

Mark and Anne took top spot, with pentathletes Charlie and Sam not far behind in second place.

We hope there’ll be more matches and joint training in future!

On 10 March several OFC fencers and friends took part in this age groups competition in Swindon. Well done for good performances against exceptionally tough opposition to Freya Leech, Ava Tester and Gabriel Tribe, and extra congratulations to Eunmin Na (bronze medal), Darcy Herring-Johnson (silver) and Noe Larrousse (silver in epee and bronze in sabre),who qualified for the British Youth Championships, to be held in Sheffield in May.

Photo: Anne Tester

This competition is for younger fencers, and offers a great opportunity to qualify for the British Youth Championships.

It’s not far away, at Swindon Indoor Football.

Full details will be posted on the Southern Region website here:

http://southernfencing.org.uk/?p=3635

The festive atmosphere of the BBO Foil Rally was a great place for some of our junior fencers to gain experience (or more experience) of team competition.  Amidst the Christmas lights, fairies, French hens, geese allez-ing, turkey foils and the occasional (Foiliz Navidad) bull, matador, piglet and pirate, our teams wielded “Foils Around the Christmas Tree”, and brought “Piste on Earth”. Even our spare fencer found a two-person team to join, proving indeed that “It’s a Wonderfoil Life”. Well done to Esther, Luca, Vito, Ava, Cohen, Xavier and Ruby, for putting in a long day of fencing.

Report by Anne Tester, photo by James Kingston