British Championships 2006 - Individual and Team
They sucked. Not so bad on the Sunday, but still
not great!
Odds of winning having done 6 bouts of exercise in
the previous 2 months, of which only 2 are fencing? Not
high.
Odds of being able to walk after two
complete days of fencing? Minimal.
I
managed to survive, just about. However, the lack of training, general fatness
and a moment of madness led to my early exit from the Individuals. This was
poor, as in the last 5 years, I've come 3rd, poor (bad year!), 1st, 2nd and now
20th-ish.
After an ok poule - bit dodgy in
some of the fights, ended up doing just about enough to win, except for one
fight (so that's 5 won, one lost), which I lost 5-4, despite doing my most
perfect fleche ever (that's the bit where you run at someone), and landed 3
perfect hits on the hand. Obviously they weren't perfect, cos they didn't come
up and I got hit in my chest.
Bugger.
Then had a nasty last 64 fight -
Rob Gore, who I beat in the semi-finals last year! Both of us have had an off
year, but it was still a good fight, nip and tuck until I pulled a four hit lead
to win 15-11.
Then the bad thing happened
- lost 15-12 to James Thornton, whom I normally devour (though he was fencing
well I must admit). Leading 10-8 with 20 seconds to go in the 1st of 3 periods
I dropped a silly hit and then lost my head, proceeding to run at the guy till I
had lost (within that 20 seconds!).
At
least my team-mate Al Gerrard won (first comp he's won for 9 years!). This
means our club has won the individual title 3 times out of 4 years and last year
I came 2nd. Plus all 3 regular members of our club have now won. Pretty darn
good for such a small club!
The team was
good - easily the best year, with 4 members this time (Al Baker is a new
addition to the club). Anyway, we started slowly in the poule, nearly losing to
the Haverstock D team (otherwise known as Team Italia - lovely bunch of guys,
who were really pretty good fencers!). But eventually ended up as 7th seeds,
winning all 3 of our matches. First up in the knock-out was the Team Italia
again, who we defeated much more comfortably this time. We then destroyed
Stockport in the last 8, before facing Reading in the last 4, whom we again
defeated relatively easily. These were all testaments to the standard of our
fencing as all of the other fenced well. We were just to
strong.
And so on to Haverstock. Again.
3 years in a row we've lost to them. Unfortunately, this was again the case - a
very close and enjoyable match going to 45-43. Not quite enough again! Next
time, I promise. Still second isn't too
bad...
It hurt the next day, lots and
lots. But it was worth it. I missed the fencing!
Posted: Monday - July 24, 2006 at 08:14 AM
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