PLYMOUTH FENCERS REPRESENT SOUTH WEST AT
BRITISH YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIPS
The weekend of the 17th and 18th February saw the culmination of the 2007 British Youth Championships at Fenton Manor, Stoke-on-Trent with the Epee competition on the Saturday and Sabre on the Sunday. The Foil heats had been held the previous month on the 21st and 22nd January.
Plymouth was represented across all three weapons, and all the fencers can be very proud of their results.
If we begin with the ladies, Corinna Lawrence fenced GBR team mate Jade Clark (North East) to a 12 11 victory to become this years U18 Champion having met and defeated Millie Forest (South West) 15 8 in the semi final, a very well deserved win.
Toni Denham (U14) finished 3rd having met old adversary Caitlin Chang (Yorkshire) in the semi finals but unfortunately failed to win through to the final, finishing 15 8 down. Chang went on to beat Amy Radford (West Midlands) 15 4 to claim the U14 title.
In the U18 Boys event James Denham, fencing for the last time at this competition, entered the DE seeded 25th. Winning his last 32 fight against number 8 seed James Harris 15 -14 he eventually finished 14th having gone out to the number 6 seed ex-Plymouthian Aaron Gardiner (South East)15 6.
The U16 Boys saw reigning U14 Champ David Stewart-Watson fighting in this age group for the first time, having finished the poules as the number 19 seed he met Matthew Albers (North West) in a very close fight which saw Albers eventually triumph 15 = 12
U14 Boys saw first timers Ross Raymond-Jones and twins Lewis and Connor Smart competing, Lewis and Connor impressed by both winning all but one of their poule fights, Ross also fared well, and at the end of the poule round Lewis was seeded 7th, Connor 11th and Ross 22nd. Unfortunately these seedings meant that Ross and Connor fought in the first round of the DE and Connor was victorious. The twins both went through to the last 16 where they were both eventually defeated and finished 10th and 12th respectively, with a respectable 22nd for Ross. A very promising result for these three young Epeeists.
On the Sunday the U18 Boys Sabre saw Jake Rowley seeded 7th after the poule eventually finishing 8th having defeated Dominic Kinsella (West Midlands) 15 9 in the last sixteen before finally going out to Dan Balderson (East Midlands) 15 8.
Back in January when the Foil heats were held our second set of twins (we have four in total) Jason and Warren Shillingford competed in the U18 Boys after the poule the boys were ranked 21st and 3rd respectively. Jason went out in the last 32 to Amir Choaie (London) 15-12, whilst Warren maintained his original seeding finishing as 3rd having lost to Ben Peggs (Southern)15-11.
On the previous day Toni Denham had fenced in the U14 Girls, seeded 11th after the poule she fenced her way into the last 8 by defeating the 6th seed Claudia Mullins (Eastern) 15 13 and then met the 3rd seed Sophie Mason (North West) finally finishing 8th having been defeated by Mason 15 8