GUERNSEY’S best win in seven years saw our fencers win all eight of the gold medals, six out of the eight silvers and nine out of the 14 bronze medals to give Jersey the thrashing of their lives and on their own territory at Fort Regent. The omens, however, are that things are looking up in Jersey with a new coach bringing an additional dimension to their fencing capabilities.

Naveen Rahman was the leading medal-winner for Guernsey with victory in foil, epee and sabre.

This won her the Master-at-Arms award for the best woman fencer of the competition.

Alan Bushby won gold in the foil and epee competitions and this gave him the Condor trophy for the best man of the match. Rob Harnish completed the rout when he won the sabre championship to leave Jersey with only a few minor medals.

In the men’s foil competition the seeding rounds determine the order of the direct elimination section. By the quarter-finals only three Jersey fencers remained. Harnish took out Jersey’s Alan Lay by a comfortable 15-4.

In the semi-finals Bushby cut Harnish out of the reckoning by eliminating him by 15-12 with Ross Martel winning his semi to eliminate Sam Parish, an Elizabeth College schoolboy, by the same margin.

The final between Bushby and Martel was an interesting tussle. Bushby had an athletic style and extremely fast penetrating attacks, while Martel had an excellent sense of distance. In this case the athlete won over the tactician by 15-9.

In the women’s foil competition, only one of the Jersey competitors made it past the eight finals, and seven Sarnian fencers looked forward to carving up the medals between them.

Sue Martel lost to Rahman by 15-1. Catherine Taylor succumbed to Elaine Ellington by 15-9 and Hollie Redhead did her duty by eliminating the solitary Jersey remnant by a comfortable 15-9. Julie Dyer then beat relative newcomer Jenny Harding by 15-7.

In the semi-finals, Dyer’s considerable experience stood her in good stead and she easily overcame Redhead by 15-1. In the other semi-final Redhead let little slip as her accurate attacks and riposte took out Ellington by 15-3. In the final Rahman showed extremely good form and she restricted Dyer to only three hits while scoring 15 herself.

The women’s epee was an interesting competition with two Guernsey women who had fenced for England. Rahman is more a specialist in foil, but Taylor has been doing great things in epee over the last few months. No Jersey fencers made it to the quarter-finals. In these Redhead, who is turning into an impressive stylist at epee, defeated team mate Mita Rahman by 15-7.

Debbie Parrot beat Martel in a nail biting finish by 15-14 and Taylor defeated Harding by 15-6.

The semi-final between Naveen Rahman and Parrot went the way the seedings had indicated and Parrot lost by 15-5. The other semi was between 16-year-old Redhead and Taylor. In a stylish fight, Taylor always had just the upper hand but Redhead kept plugging away and was eventually defeated by 15-10.

The final was a tense affair. There was Taylor, the specialist epeeist, who knew that deep attacks could bring swift ripostes and Rahman who dared not attack because her sense of the fight suggested that riposting would pay her a better dividend.

So at the end of two three-minute rounds the score stood at 3-0 to Rahman.

Taylor pulled one back and then succeeded in driving Rahman over the end of the piste to get a penalty hit against her and so the score stood at 3-2 when time ran out after nine minutes of fencing time.

The women’s sabre saw a Jersey fencer take a medal for the first time. Joya Ghose was defeated in the semi-final, earning herself and Jersey a bronze medal.

Taylor then met Naveen Rahman in the final.

In both cases sabre is not their preferred weapon but in a fast fight concluded well within the first three minute round Rahman won the gold leaving Taylor the silver.

The men’s sabre was the best chance for Jersey to take a trophy as they had several able contestants.

Martel won his quarter-final beating Jersey’s Ben Mason by 15-6. Two Jerseymen fought and Steve Cook was victorious by 15-11.

In the third quarter-final Meyrick Simmonds lost to Jersey’s Alan Ley by 15-10, and Rob Harnish had the unfortunate job of eliminating fellow islander Bushby by 15-12.

Martel (Guernsey) met Cook (Jersey) in the first semi-final and Jersey has obviously specialised in this weapon over the last year and their sabre fencing is progressing well.

Cook did his island proud by being the first Jersey fencer to reach a final in all of the senior competitions of the weekend by defeating Martel by 15-9.

In the other semi, Harnish took out the trainer of the Jersey team, Ley, also by 15-9.

The final was a well-matched affair with both fencers showing a good sense of distance.

It was a skilled performance from both of them and it was a worthy final.

In the end Harnish just had the edge, thought it was a very close match.

Two hits that Harnish made with cuts just scraping his opponent’s mask were crucial to his success by 15-13.

In the women’s Master-at-Arms competition, Naveen Rahman, with three straight victories, had an unbeatable perfect score of 30.

Second-placed was Taylor on 24 and third was Redhead with 16.

In the men’s section, Bushby won with 26 points. In second place was Harnish with 24 and Jersey got a consolation third place when Ley was awarded 20 points for his three competitions.