Golden Weekend for ZFW Seniors
On Friday it was Sasha seizing Gold at the European U23 Championships, and then on Saturday Richard secured the British men's title (again!), with James-Andrew taking bronze.
Under the supervision of Maestro Ziemek, Alexander Choupenitch (Sasha) beat competitors from across the continent to be crowned European Under 23 Champion in Minsk, Belarus. After seeding #1 in the poule, Sasha had reasonably comfortable matches until the tableau of eight against Italian Guillaume Bianchi, when he was pushed to 15-13. The semi-final against Alexandre Sido of France was won 15-10 and in the final Sasha overwhelmed his Russian opponent, Kirill Borodachev, beating him 15-3 to secure the crown. Club mate Alex Lloyd finished with a top 32 result, succumbing to the highly rated Italian, Francesco Ingargiola.
This country's best fencers came together at the Sports Dock, University of East London, over the weekend to compete in the Logitech British Fencing Championships 2017. ZFW had strong representation in the Men's Foil, and hopes were high for some great results. In the end, Richard Kruse took home the gold medal and, with it, the under-stated trophy, having beaten ZFW- and GB-team-mate James-Andrew Davis in the semi final.
In some sense, it was an unfortunate pattern across the day that ZFW club-mates met each other through the direct elimination stages.... It started when Matthew Abrahams met Tom Corlett in the last 32, which Tom took with only a single point winning margins. Tom then met Peter Barwell in the last 16, with Pete emerging victorious. Then Pete lost out to James-Andrew in the quarters, who in turn lost to Richard in the semis. Matt finished 20th, Tom 12th and Peter 8th.
The only ZFW fencers not falling into this club-mate-cannibalising trap were David Standen, who finished 18th, and Nikita Kuznetsov.
A fantastic weekend for our senior fencers. Congratulations to you all from your very proud club mates!!
