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Fencing Report 2013-14

It has been one of the busiest and most successful years for RGS fencers with numbers increasing and more and more boys fencing in County , Regional and National events.

In the Autumn of 2013 and January 2014 there was a lot of success in the Bucks , Berks and Oxon County championships with RGS fencers carrying home 17 medals. Across the three weapons.

Then Noah and Seth Blackmore along with Thomas Rizvi pulled off a gold medal winning performance in the Southern Region Team Epee event in the Autumn of 2013. As a result all three were selected to represent Southern Region fencing sabre at the Cadet Winton Competition just before Christmas.

At the start of February three RGS fencers took part in the Cadet and Junior British National Championships. Thomas Rizvi in the Cadet Foil ; Matthew Latham in the Cadet Epee and Noah Blackmore in the Junior Epee. All acquitted themselves well.

This year the school also had an unprecidented number of medal winners - six in all - at the Southern Region British Youth Championship qualifiers in February 2014 . The boys were particularly strong again in all the sabre events., with five qualifying for the British Youth Championship finals at the English Institute of Sport Sheffield over the May Bank Holiday . The famous five were Noah Blackmore, Thomas Rizvi, Seth Blackmore, Christopher Gothard and Samir Sydykov. In addition, Seth Blackmore managed a double qualification with a result in the u16 epee event too.

At the beginning of March there was also success for three foilists, Charlie Ellis, Samir Sydykov and Christopher Gothard in the British Schools Team Championships which took place at Medway Park.. They won a bronze medal in their team age group event. Meanwhile , the Blackmore brothers and Tom Rizvi were unlucky to twice miss out on semi final places and certain medals by one hit in both the u18 team epee and sabre events.

As usual the high-light of the year for most RGS Fencers was the Public Schools Fencing Championships at Crystal Palace at the end of March.This year RGS fielded its largest team ever, with fencers competing in the Senior, Junior and Mount Haes age categories. A stalwart few – five in all – opted to fence all three weapons in their age category. Of the seniors, Team Captain Noah Blackmore finished very respectably 18^th in the foil, 22^nd in the epee and 9^th in the senior sabre. Samir Sydykov achieved an excellent top 15 place in the hard fought Junior foil event.It was noticeable that the junior group boys all finished strongly in their sabre event, very little separating Sharjeel Ahmed, Thomas Rizvi, Cameron Willson and Seth Blackmore. Good performances all round meant that RGS finished second overall in the Mount Haies and Junior events combined, 3^rd overall in all the combined Junior events, and 3^rd in the “most Improved results “ trophy category.

RGS fencers turned out in good numbers to support the Bucks , Berks and Oxon Fencing Picnic at the beginning of June. This is a paired relay event, fenced to ten hits with a senior fencer teamed with a novice fencer on the day. The RGS fencers have a very good reputation at the competition for willingly partnering the smaller, newer and more vulnerable novice fencers. This year was no exception and they received considerable praise from parents of smaller fencers – including parents of children they did not even partner – for their fantastic attitude, support and willingness to fence their socks off for their young “charges”.

In June an unprecidented number of RGS boys took part in the England Youth championships at Hatfield Sports Village,. For Jonathon Long and Harry Walden of year 8 this was their first competition. Also fencing foil were Thomas Mason, and Daniel Simpson also from year 8. From year 7 Sean metcalfe was representing the school at foil. Pryam Rakesh Roshan Hindocha and Samir Sydykov were fencing foil in the u15 category and Samir also fenced in the u15 sabre event.

In addition to ouir Fencers at the England Youth Championships RGS also provided two fully qualified Referees , Noah and Seth Blackmore. Both the Blackmores have taken level two FIE Refereeing qualification and are much in demand at County, Regional and National events. In fact Seth Blackmore's Refereeing was considered of such a high standard at the England Youth Championships that he was asked to be the video Referee for one of the finals .

RGS currently has two boys regularly competing in the Cadet British Selection Circuit at epee; two boys competing in the Cadet BSC events at Foil; one boy competing in the Leon Paul Junior Series Foil events; one in the LPJS Sabre events and one competing in the British Junior Selection Circuit for Epee. RGS Fencing Captain Noah Blackmore completed his last season representing the school by winning the Sportsmanship Cup at the Bill Hoskyns Open – after computer error robbed him of points for Junior ranking and national selection.