Sharon Jones reports
This weekend saw the Senior British Championships at the University of East London in Docklands, London. These are compulsory for anyone who wants to compete in international competitions, whether at world cups or satellites, so pretty much everyone enters them, up to and including Olympians.
Ed had a frustrating time of it in the poule, losing to fencers he has consistently beaten over the years. While Ed was not on top form, there were frequent problems with the spools forming part of the scoring equipment, in that fencers were hitting each other simultaneously and cleanly and no lights were coming up and at one end (the one Ed was at for four of his six fights) single hits were clearly being made with nothing registering. In his two fights at the other end, Ed beat Scottish fencer Jonathan Woollard and held off GB 4th ranked fencer, Ben Peggs for almost 3 minutes. We later on saw a DE fight being lost on the "problem end" of the same piste with the same problems occurring. Ed was ranked 85th going into the DEs and faced 44th ranked Harry Gray from Chichester in L128 (luckily on a different piste). He made sure of getting through to the next round with an assured and confident 15-7 win. Ed was pleased to have the opportunity to fence 2012 Olympian (and former Sheffield Buccaneers fencer) Husayn Rosowsky in L64. Ed started off by showing Rosowsky a little too much respect and quickly found himself 1-5 down. He battled hard, however, and was reasonably happy to have taken 9 points off Rosowsky when the match ended midway through the second period. Ed came away with a increased number of senior ranking points compared to last year.
Regular guest fencer Serena Patel was competing in the women's foil championships. She had an excellent poule, with only one loss, 4-5 to Madison Pearce of Salle Boston. The highlight was a composed 5-3 win over the eventual gold medal winner, Chloe Dickson of Edinburgh Fencing Club. Ranked 8th going into the DEs, she had a bye in L64 and faced Amy Home of Marshall Fencing in L32. This was a tough draw (Home eventually making L8) and Serena lost 7-15, finishing in a very decent 17th place.