GUERNSEY have returned from the Commonwealth Veterans Championships with a plethora of medals.
More than 120 fencers descended on Jersey at the weekend from countries such as South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore and Australia including many former world champions.
The competition consisted of three age groups in the three weapons, sabre, foil and epee, as well as in a team relay event for each weapon.
Guernsey epee champion Adam Bonner (pictured) secured gold in the individual epee over-40 event, Rob Harnish won bronze in the individual foil, the Guernsey men’s foil team took silver and there was a bronze for the men’s sabre team as well.
‘I asked 100% from each fencer and I received it,’ said Guernsey manager Ross Martel.
‘Returning with Commonwealth gold, silver and bronze makes all the hard work worthwhile.’
The first day of competition was for the foil fencers.
Julie Dyer was on fine form but she narrowly missed out in a place in the top eight after Veronika Ho of Canada defeated her 10-8.
Wendy Batiste lost 10-2 to Wales’ Lynda Norrie and Sue Martel went down to Presentation Madrangca of England.
The men’s foil saw Bonner receive a bye to the next round, due to his high seeding, but fencers Andy Higgs and Rob Harnish had to compete in direct elimination to proceed further.
Unfortunately, though, for Meyrick Simmonds, the former Guernsey and Channel Islands foilist was forced to retire from the competition after picking up a leg injury.
Higgs faced Paul Baillache of England and produced some wonderful fleche attacks on the London fencer, but point control failure unfortunately crept into Higgs’ game resulting in a 10-5 loss.
On the next piste, Harnish faced Dennis Ward of England and was able to make light work of the fight by making it through the elimination round with a 10-4 victory.
After Bonner took care of Francis Kwong of Singapore and Harnish saw off England’s Jonathan Dawkins, the pair met each other in the quarter-finals.
Knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses, it was Harnish who took a greater advantage, winning 10-7.
However, Harnish could not keep his good run going as he fell to Steve Fox of England in the semis, but he was pleased to make do with a bronze medal.
Onto the team relay matches and Guernsey’s foil women’s side of Dyer, Martel and Batiste finished fourth after being knocked out by Wales while Bonner, Harnish and Higgs reached the final by seeing off some strong Welsh opponents.
With a gold medal at stake, their opponents England proved to be too strong, winning 45-34.
Epee was contested on the second day of the competition.
Bonner was seeded second and made it through to the last eight before coming unstuck at the hands of Anton Pollard of England.
However, due to his high ranking and final eight positions, Bonner was placed in the over-40 age-group final against Michael Lambert of Scotland.
With gold in his sights, the Sarnian wasted no time getting down to work and scoring some fantastic epee hits to wrist and arm.
Bonner brought home Guernsey’s first Commonwealth fencing gold medal with a victory 10-9.
Higgs could not conjure up the magic from the foil as Canadian David Arthurs eliminated him.
The Guernsey men’s epee team, consisting of Bonner, Higgs and an injured Simmonds, were up against Scotland and the Scots had been clearly training hard to be victorious 45-32.
The final day of competition saw the sabruers in action and current island champion Carol Wood took to the piste.
She had a slow start in the seeding rounds but got back on track before coming up against fifth seed Gillian Aghajan.
The Welsh fencer won 9-8 on time.
The men’s sabre started strong for Harnish and Higgs, where both fencers were seeded in the top 10.
Higgs took a commanding 10-3 victory over Mark Ballard of Canada but met his fate against England’s Andras Bornemisza.
Harnish, while fencing with an injured arm, performed well and made light work of beating Francis Kwong of Singapore 10-6.
A mix of fatigue and injury prevented Harnish from proceeding to the final four as he met Chris Prevett of England who won 10-5.
The final event of the competition was one of the most exciting as the Guernsey sabre team pulled off a fantastic 45-36 win over England’s B.
But the victory ensured a meeting with the England A side who took the honours 45-31.
Guernsey played Canada in the third place play-offs and won bronze with 45-39 victory.Commonwealth Veterans Championships: Guernsey win medals of all colours in Jersey
Article posted on 17th July, 2009 - 2.29pm
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