Imperial College Fencing Club Bring Home Medals Galore!

Last weekend saw 19 Imperial College students travel to Nottingham for the BUCS individual Fencing championships. With the toughest competition yet, they returned triumphant with their best results to date!

The weekend of 5 and 6 December 2009 saw 19 Imperial College students travel to Nottingham for the BUCS individual Fencing championships. The competition was the biggest and toughest so far with as many, if not more entrants than at most National Open Tournaments. Despite the amount of entries and the level of competition, our students brought home their best results yet!

With a maximum of 6 entries per institution per weapon, we had students fighting for places to compete before the club even left London which is always a good start.

The men's foil competition was very strong this year with 137 entrants and many International fencers taking part. Both Chris Gilliam and Rob Shaw managed a top 16 finish after losing out to those who won and picked up the Bronze medal.

The women's foil competition was just as tough with 77 entrants. Emily Bottle was a little shaky in the poules from a night out commiserating the epee which had taken place the day before, but picked up by the direct elimination rounds to knock out the number 9 seed and finish a respectable 16th. Alice Mitchell was on good form, being knocked out in the L8 by silver medallist Nikki Barlow. Nikki is ranked 6th in Britain and is actually at Brunel University but trains with us at Imperial  as well as being coached by the Imperial coach at his own club in central London.

Outi Supponen fenced very well throughout but was also knocked out by Nikki, in the semi-final. Hannah Bryars was on fantastic form throughout the competition, winning her semi-final against a strong Italian opponent 15-6. She then went on to win the final 15-10 over club mate Nikki, gaining her fourth Gold medal at the BUCS individuals in a row for Imperial.

In the Men's Epee competition, out of 118 entrants Imperial managed to clock finishing positions in 39th, 16th and 9th. Similarly in the Women's events, Imperial managed to finish 74th and 23rd out of 79 entrants.

Clare Harding was the only female to represent Imperial in the Sabre event but managed to finish in 17th within a very strong field.

Lastly, the men's Sabre event saw 108 individuals take part. 5 students represented Imperial in this event and all finished within the top 44. Congratulations have to be given to Henry Gann who picked up the bronze medal after being beaten by Maiyuran Ratneswaran who went on to win Gold for Imperial.

Imperial finished the weekend and came home with 4 medals. Our fencers are definitely the ones to watch and we wish them the best of luck for the rest of the season.

Well done to all who competed last weekend, excellent results all round!

» Learn more about Imperial's Fencing Club