Sharon Jones reports
This has been another busy week for Fernwood's fencers.
Ethan Dakin and Arthur Eakin were both fencing in Newcastle in the Leon Paul Junior Series, Ethan in the U11s and Arthur in the U13s.
Ethan came away with a gold medal, beating Alexander James of Russell Swords from Cardiff 10-0 in the final, having lost 1-5 to James in the poule (his only loss of the day). En route to the final, he beat Yaqub Wagdi of London's Salle Paul 10-0 and then came back from being 2-8 down in the semi-final against Henry Stirling of Sussex House to win 10-8. This gives Ethan 4 1st place results in the Series, meaning that he can't now be overtaken in 1st place in the overall series rankings for 2018.
Arthur is still fencing in the younger of the two years in the U13s and faced a very tough group. He won 3 and lost 4 of his poule matches, but this included a win over the 3rd highest ranked fencer in the U13 series, Bruno Winter, which was very pleasing. He faced Murdo Glen of Dunblane in L16, having lost 1-4 to him in the poule. Arthur went into successful defensive mode and the score was 1-2 at the end of the second period. With 20 seconds to go before full time, the score was 2-3. Arthur had to chase and he went for it, but unfortunately it didn't quite work and he lost 2-6, leaving Arthur with a very respectable 10th place finish.
Ed Howlett was fencing in the Leon Paul Satellite competition in London. This was a senior international competition, open to all fencers, with around 110 entrants. He had decent poule results, convincingly beating GB, Irish and South African fencers, whilst losing to an Argentinian, a Hungarian and a GB senior squad fencer. This put him ranked as 54th for the DEs, but he had an unlucky draw against German senior squad international Tom Gombos and went out 7-15, resulting in a 67th place.
Both Ed and James Rutherford were also fencing during the week for their respective University men's first teams. Ed's King's College London team beat Royal Holloway 1sts 129-110, with the men's foilists (with Ed as anchor, and Swiss and German fencers as the other two) winning 45-37). Meanwhile, James's Nottingham Trent University team beat De Montfort University.