Fioretto juniors excelled this year in the National U15 and U17 championships. 6 of our juniors took part, all U15 athletes, and no one came home empty handed. Our 2 U15 women's foilist made the VIC A foil team after solid personal performances, and helped the team to Silver against Singapore in the Teams comp final. The men's foilists and epeeists were not to be out done either!
Overall I think the whole team was a little nervous on day one and this reflected in the foilists results. Both Joshua (10th) and William (12th) made the top 16 which was their basic goal, but both were out of sorts on the day and capable of better fencing. Nerves of course affect everyone and part of these competitions is learning to deal with the pressure. The lesson was quickly learnt and both got into it te next day. Their results meant they formed 2/3 of the Vic A foil team. both picked up their fencing in the teams comp and put in solid performances in the final against a very strong NSW A team. Silver was a great result for them.
Following straight on the heels of the foil teams came individual U15 epee. For this event we had Peter and Nathan, and a tired but 'not finished yet' William. All 3 put in strong poole performances and cruised through their early DE rounds. Nathan's ride finally finished in the top 8 (great result) and both Peter and William shook off challengers in the quarter finals to make the top 4. Semi final results showed some nerves again for Peter who opened powerfully then slipped back to lose narrowly. William gave fellow Victorian Alex a wake up call early in their semi, surprising no one more than himself, but Alex was the favourite and the pressure agreed with him. From then on William could only keep him honest and went down in the end 9-15. Still, thrilling stuff and both boys qualified for the Vic A epee team, a dream team consisting of the Gold medalist and both bronze medallists. Nathan went to be the top seed in the Vic B team.
The next day the U15 teams epee provided some exciting fencing with the A team powering into the final while the B fenced well against ACT A to make the semi final. Both Vic Teams had to fence each other in the semi, which is always a shame, but they had a lot of fun with it. Vic A went on to the final against NSW A. The match opened a little shakey with only a modest leading margin established by Peter and William in their opening matches. The excitement came with the 5th match between William and the No1 NSW fencer. With a 2 point lead William's counter defensive style of epee suited a confident epeeist that needed to score. A combination of patience and focus saw William pick apart his opponent's perparation and attacks, dragging out the team lead as the Victorian crowd was going wild with excitement. After 3 minutes he had scored 9 points to 1, and Victoria now had a dominating lead. Alex stepped up next and crashed his opponent in true style, 7-0. After that the boys could relax and have fun, which they did, eventually defeating NSW A 45-21. The great thing was the truly balanced team contributions by each member in a convincing performance.
Vic A and Vic B epee teams both came home with medals. Gold for Vic A and bronze for Vic B.
2 of our juniors stayed on for extension training in U17 age groups for the weapon. Michelle again made the girls A foil team and scored bronze, while Peter excelled with a top 8 finish in U17 epee and gold in the Vic A U17 teams epee.