Category: Competition update

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Competition update

Cairo 22 – GB Sabre – Men

The Fencing World Championships take place in Cairo this year from 15 – 23 July.

Who’s going for GB?

Well, the men’s event starts at 13:00 local time (GMT +2) on 15 July so let’s start with them in order of their FIE ranking.

Will Deary

Will Deary is current British Champion (for the 3rd time) and ranked a career high 36 in the World in the Seniors. Former World No 1 Cadet (2013/14) and World No 9 Junior (2016/17), Will, now 25, has been fencing since the age of 10. You can see his FIE biography and also his Ophardt biography (includes non FIE events to the extent they are in the system and so extends on the FIE biog to some extent)

Recent results include a fantastic L16 in the Tbilisi World Cup in January 22, a 21st place in the Padua Grand Prix in May 22 and 28th at the European Championships in Antalya.

Will has represented GB at World Championships on numerous occasions, coming 7th in the Juniors in Plovdiv in 2017 and 28th in the seniors in Budapest in 2019 while also representing GB at Senior level in 2017 and 2018.

JJ Webb

JJ Webb, a former British Champion (2016) is ranked at 112 in the World, courtesy of a L16 (15th) finish in Antalya at the European Championships. JJ has been ranked as high as 61 (2017/18) but it is no secret that the focus this year has been on rehab and staying as fit as possible through an injury blighted season, during which he did not compete internationally until the Padua Grand Prix in May. In previous seasons JJ, who is now 26 and took up the sport at the age of 11, has achieved a L64 finish at the Warsaw World Cup in February 2020, a L32 at the 2019 European Championships in Duesseldorf and other L64 finishes in 2019.

JJ has been in World Championships squads for GB almost constantly since he came 11th in the Cadets in Moscow in 2012.

JJ’s FIE biography and Ophardt Biography give more detail of course.

Barney Halliwell, second in the most recent British Championships, and currently ranked a career high 138 in the World and formerly as high as 39th in the Juniors, will be representing GB at a World Championships for the first time at Senior level, having fenced in the U20 Worlds in Torun in Torun in 2019 and also in Verona in 2018 where he was part of the junior team (Howes, Edwards, Suddards, Halliwell) which came an agonizingly close and amazing 4th! Barney also made the L32 in the individual event in Antalya (22nd).

Barney, now 22 years old and whose older brother and sister are also sabre fencers, came 22nd at the European Championships in Antalya this year and achieved a L96 (69th) at the World Cup in Madrid in May.

Barney’s FIE Biography and Ophardt Biography give more detail.

Luke Haynes

Luke Haynes, currently ranked 222 in the World, is representing GB at his first World Championships, having also been in the team for the Senior Euros in Antalya (40th) and the U23 Euros in Tallin (24th) this year. Luke was also part of the Senior team (Deary, Halliwell, Haynes, Howes) who achieved a remarkable 11th place in the Budapest World Cup this year to temporarily boost the team’s World ranking to 17th ahead of the European Championships.

Luke’s FIE Biography and Ophardt Biography give much more detail.

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Competition update Explainer

Last 32 for Dan Twine in Vienna

Congratulations to Dan Twine and Jasper Tsao for getting over to Vienna to compete in the EFC U23 event there. Particularly well done to Dan for making the L32, narrowly losing out 14:15 in the fight for a place in the L16.

There was a strong Italian contingent among a number of countries including Hungary, Czech republic and, of course Austria in a field of 57 starters. No British Women made the trip.

You can get all the details here

What’s more, you can get the match by match details of this and Birmingham International and the Cambridge Winter Open if you click on the competitor’s name. Wherever we have had access to the competition files we have uploaded them to add to each fencer’s biography.

This is the sort of thing you will see – try it with your own biog!

Then click on the name of the person you are interested in – let’s take Dan for this example – and that opens up their biog. This is the overview tab. Low and to the left is where you want to be 🙂

But we can look at bit deeper – how has he done in head to heads in the competitions recorded? If the organisers have given us the xml file, or we have extracted it from online results, you’ll get a picture like this:

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Competition update

Liege 22 photo and video report

We have put together a short report on the intrepid GB Veterans trip to Liege.

Tony Baston-Hall and Emmanuel Therond made their way to Liege with coach George Suddards to try their hand up against some pretty stiff international competition. Braving the snow they arrived in good spirits.

They left feeling pretty good about the trip and determined to do even better next time. A bronze medal for Emmanuel was not at all shabby, we’re sure you’d agree. As we’ve mentioned before, it would be great to have more people go next time so GB can field a team.

Photographs and additional reporting by George Suddards.

Tony Emmanuel Emmanuel Emmanuel George
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Competition update GB Teams upate

GB Sabre Squads head to World Cadet and Junior Championships in Dubai

GB are fielding a full squad of 4 at Junior and 3 at Cadet for both Men and Women with some selections being added since the initial BF announcement.

First up, and opening the Championships are 156 Men and 129 Women in the Junior (U20) Sabre events on 2 April.

Women’s and Men’s Junior Squads with their current World Rankings (not really indicative due to a very disrupted season)

On 3 April it’s the turn of the 93 Women and 97 Men Cadets (U17)

The GB squads are (there are no world cups at this age group so no world rankings):

Finally, on 4 April we have the Junior Team competitions – there is no Cadet Team competition at the World Championships.

The teams can sometimes differ from the individuals (though not for sabre this year) so we show them here with their world rankings and associated points.

Find out more about the individuals and the teams’ achievements to date by visiting their new dedicated Cadet Teams and Junior Teams pages. There you will find past achievements as well as links to the fencing biographies of this year’s team members.

Best of luck to all!!!

If anyone going would like to send photos, videos or comments, please send them to admin@thesabreclub.uk or via Messenger so we can better bring it all to life.

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Competition update GB Teams upate

International results

GB Senior teams have been in action today. The women were disappointed not to get past Romania and into the L16 again but could not quite find the form they showed in Athens and Tbilisi. But progress is definitely being made by them as a team and we believe in them. They took time out to say thank you to the donors who made their team entry possible. You’ll see from the brand new GB Teams page that GB have all too often not even sent a team to competions in recent years. If we are to get anywhere this cannot remain the case. Both the women and the men pay their own expenses. We have at least managed to pay their entry fees to lighten the burden and to show them that we care about their amazing efforts in representing their country.

Here Maria, Alex and Sophia stop to say thank you for your support before their disappointment in exiting the competition earlier than hoped in Istanbul and ending up in 19th place. Nonetheless this will add to their World Ranking points and help them with their future seeding. The women’s team is still very much on an upward trajectory. We believe there is plenty of talent in the squad and their persistence and dedication will pay off.

In Budapest the GB men had a tricky start against Belgium, with some evident nerves as they sought to avoid an equally early exit. But they came through the challenge to go on to face Germany in the last 16. The eventual bronze medalists proved just a bit too strong for the young GB team.

The highlight of the day was a superb victory over Canada 45:43 with a storming performance by Will Deary to come from 6 points behind to win by 2. This would not have been possible, though, without the whole team holding the line and keeping the gap low even when it looked like it might grow to 10 in the final 3 bouts. You can see the Instagram feeds on the home page if you want to get a feel for the excitement.

Despite losing to Japan in an attempt to finish in the top 10, the men still held their resolve, kept their morale, and pulled together to beat Georgia in their final match of the day, securing 11th place overall. This equals the best GB men’s World Cup result since May 2017 in Madrid, where the team, featuring a youthful Will Deary, defeated Japan 45:44 and then lost to Georgia 35:45 to finish 10th.

Will Deary, Barney Halliwell, Nick Howes and Luke Haynes (Left to Right) say a big thank you to the team’s supporters and donors.

To celebrate the senior teams’ continued efforts and achievements we have published a new page on the website just for them. Check out previous results and current team members on the GB Senior Teams page.

Well done Teams!

If you like what you see and want to make a difference to support, please do go ahead and donate using the links on the pages or by going to the charity website via the menu.

Thank you for your interest and your support.

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Competition update Rankings update

Updated U14 England Rankings, Truro LPJS results and next chance for U14 points

The results are in for the Truro LPJS

Thank you to Joanne Bennett for sending them through to us so promptly.

The results of the U13 events have been linked to the U14 England rankings, which we are proud to provide for England Fencing.

Don’t forget to enter the next U14 England ranking event, part of the Youth Series – both U12 and U14 age groups count toward the U14 rankings – U12 with a multiplier of 1 and U14 with a multiplier of 2.

You can find more details and your own U14 Calendar on the dedicated Sabre Club U14 Page. There is a link to Sport 80 from the event in the Calendar so you don’t have to go searching about too much. This should open in a new tab for convenience. Entries are still open. The next event is in sunny Manchester!

Happy fencing!

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Competition update Explainer

How teams are seeded at Cadet Euros

You will know by now that GB’s women have a bye to the Last 8 and are seeded 5th. France are seeded 4th so they fence eachother. But how are these seedings calculated?

Great Britain has a seeding total of 60.009 because the 3 fencers with the best placings came 9th, 20th and 31st. 9+20+31=60. The best placed fencer was 9th so that is added on to the total as .009 to give 60.009. The lower the total, the better the seeding.

You can see that the highest placing of an individual fencer in the team is also important. When you compare Germany and France – they both add up to 36 but Germany’s Nitschmann (who incidentally put out Melissa Jane in the 64) came 3rd whereas France’s Chabrol (who put out Lexie Craze in the 16) came 7th. Thus Germany have a total of 36.003 and France have 36.007 and so are seeded lower.

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Competition update Explainer

Women’s senior sabre team update

The senior women’s team secured a top 16 finish for the second time this season, having been bitterly disappointed to go out in the 32 in Plovdiv.

Here they are pausing to show their happiness at beating the higher ranked Romania for the second time this season.

You might ask why it is so important to get a top 16 finish. There are a number of reasons:

1 If you go out in the 32, that’s it. Pack up and go home. Once in the 16 all the places, including 3rd are fenced for.

2 If you make the 16 the points are much greater, leading to a possible higher seeding next time. You don’t want to be coming up against the top 2 seeds in the 16 every time! You’ll see the difference in the extract from the results for Athens. GBR got a valuable 18 points and Romania only 8. So that L32 match is worth at least a 10 point margin with the possibility of more.

3 Once in the 16 each team member (though possibly not the reserve, who still learns a huge amount from the process) gets to fence probably 3 matches – so 9 bouts against a variety of opponents at World level. This is absolutely invaluable, with the right coaching and team spirit, for development.

The team went into this competition with 71 points, and a World ranking of 21 with their 18 points from Tunis in 2019 due to expire which would put them right down the rankings.

Not fielding a team would have led to a loss of 18 points, taking GB down to 53 points, equating to 26th all other things being equal. This would have led to the team facing one of the top seeds in the L32 every time – a very tough task and a loss of all the good work done to date, despite little or no funding and despite not being able to compete in Budapest in March 21 due to a number of factors, not least of which being the lockdown and the geographic spread of the potential women’s team members at the time.

You can see where 53 points would place you from the pre Athens table below:

So if you would like to support the future of the young fencers coming through please donate so we can directly reduce their personal costs of competing for GB.

If you are at all moved to donate some funds to make it less of a burden to have the privilege to compete for GB as a team, please donate here or by going to the charity website.

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Competition update

Athens update

5 GB women made it to the preliminary DE stage, with the cut at 124 in a field of 162. Unfortunately none of them could get through the first round to register a L96 finish or better. Some closer than others and you can check out the full results here

However, there is definitely lots of promise in the squad as you can see from the results of the poule round below and not least with Bea and Amy both making a very positive impression on their senior debuts.

Final placeNameVictoriesDefeatsIndicator
106Alex Davis33+2
108Jenna Bray33-2
113Kate Daykin230
126Bea Abram-Moore24-1
132Sophia Potter24-8
142Jess Corby14-16
148Caiti Maxwell15-13
154Amy Westwell15-18
DNSMaria Chart

On Sunday we will be following the team, whose entry fee is financed by The Sabre Club Charitable Foundation for the first time of, we hope, enough times to help them out until they can get UK Sport funding via British Fencing.

Updated for my stupid mistake in showing the rankings after the poules, which does not take into account the 16 exempt and 16 direct qualifiers to the top half of the L64. Sorry about that.

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Competition update

Cadet Euros 2

Get to know the team and follow them live

Click on the image below to go to the results

Get to know the 4 young women fencing sabre for GB in the Cadet European Championships on Saturday, 5 March. Click on their names to go to their fencing biographies.

Eleanor BLACKLEDGE

Results link

Livestream link