Sophie Williams Blog

Bronze Medal at Junior World Cup in Madrid

The Madrid World Cup event in Spain has been a great success, not just personally but for the GB team as a whole.
The event featured top fencers from Russia, Germany, Italy, USA, Spain, Belgium and GB, in a field of 70 athletes. 

After some equipment problems in the pool, I lost my first fight 5-4.  However I was feeling confident from my recent European Championship performance, and went on to win 4 and lose 2 matches in round 1.  This included a solid 5-1 win against the German Melis Ercetin, and a 5-3 victory against Pak (USA).  Going into the elimination stages I was seeded 18th, and had a tricky first round match against D’Andrea (Italy), who is ranked 15th in the world.  I fenced a good fight to take a tense 15-13 win and progress into the top 32.  Here I put away Samendinger (Germany) comfortably, and in the top 16 match beat a strong Russian 15-10 to progress to the quarter finals.  At this stage I faced the world number 18 Petraglia, another Italian, and I kept my cool to win a well-constructed fight 15-9.  I was now in the semi-final, the first of my career at World Cup level!  Unfortunately I lost out to Skyla Powers of the USA 15-10, but was placed third.  A podium finish at a World Cup tournament was a great step forward for me, and points from this result will push me up into the top 20 in the world. 

My rapidly improving performances are very heartening, and proof that my all-round training program is working well.  I’m pleased to be taking my training form into the competition arena, and I’m looking forward to the end of November and beginning of December when I’ll be off to Poland and Germany to compete at the next two junior World Cups of the season.