Sharon Jones will all the news from Fernwood Sword Club
Two fencers were in action at the weekend. Arthur Eakin was competing in the U13 Leon Paul Junior Series at Durham. he is in the younger of the two eligible year groups in this category. He had a good start, winning his first three poule matches 5-1, 5-2 and 5-2 against fencers from Scotland, the North East and Yorkshire, losing just the final one 1-4 to Finn Zaffino, from our friends at Sheffield Buccaneers. In his second poule round, Arthur won 5-0 and 5-1 against North East fencers, but came unstuck against a fencer from Yorkshire whom he'd beaten in the first round and Joshua Hemmings, the very tall silver medal winner from Radcliffe Sword. Ranked 7th after the poules, the form book went out of the window when he lost unexpectedly to Nicholas Freitas of Louth, resulting in a 9th place finish.
Meanwhile, our regular guest fencer Ethan Dakin, who competes for Sheffield Buccaneers, was fencing in the U11 men's foil in the Challenge Wratislava in Wroclaw, Poland. With 189 fencers, this was a tough competition. In the poule round, Ethan won 3 matches 4-0 and 2 matches 4-2, against fencers from Poland, Germany, Hungary and Roumania, losing 2-4 to the Polish second seed. He was seeded 18th going into the DEs, with a bye in L256. He flew through his L128 and L64 DEs, winning 8-0 in each against fencers from Roumania and Poland. He only dropped 2 points in his L32 match against a Hungarian fencer, seeded 15th. He then beat 2nd seed Arlo Bason, of Roselyon in Cornwall, 8-3. His winning run came to an end in L8, when he went out 5-8 to Polish fencer Jakub Gorczyca. Ethan finished on the podium in 6th place, a fantastic result.