En garde for fencers at world champs
Local fencers Anokha and Rahul van Manen gave their best performances at the Junior World Fencing Championship held in Egypt recently.
The two reigning Limpopo sport stars and award-winning fencers were up against rivals from Korea, Russia, France, Spain and the US.
The bubble system was applied in the tournament to ensure the health and safety of all the participants amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Their coach, Sello Maduma said both fencers fenced extremely well against the very best fencers in the world.
“Anokha fenced in the u/20 junior women’s epee event and won four from six matches in her group.
“She reached the top 64 and lost her last match 15-11 and was finally placed 48th out of 113 fencers. This moved her official world ranking from 99th to 60th out of 841 ranked fencers in the world.”
Rahul fenced in the u/17 cadet men’s epee event. He won three of his six matches and also proceeded to 64th position where he fenced against a top Serbian fencer. His final placement was 48th out of 91 fencers. We represented South Africa and Limpopo very well,” Maduma said.
He added that it is imperative to participate in such competitions in order to become a force to be reckoned with in the fencing world and stand a good chance to win medals at the Olympic Games.
“It was a very impressive performance by our fencers on a world stage, considering the fact that we did not have competitions for over a year.
We are happy that the work we have done during the lockdown was sufficient enough to carry us through. We will certainly improve with the experience we received there.”
The Junior World Fencing Championships are an annual international fencing competition held by the International Fencing Federation for athletes up to 20 years of age. The event is organised at the same time and venue as the Cadet World Championships for athletes up to 17 years old.
