Sophie Williams Blog

Gold and Silver Medals won at the Commonwealth Fencing Championships Down Under

I have now returned safe and sound from my double medal haul at the Commonwealth Fencing Championships in Melbourne. I am still fairly jet lagged, but getting over it now!

The trip to Australia was long and when I first arrived into Melbourne in the morning, all I wanted to do was go straight to bed. Somehow I managed to (mostly) stay awake for the first day which meant adapting to the time difference was a lot easier. I thought I was coping quite well, but it was at the first training session out there that I realised how jet lagged I really was! This did make me a bit nervous for the individual event, which was a couple of days later.

The individual competition started fairly early and the first round went smoothly. I won all my fights which meant I was placed 2nd going into the elimination rounds. The only bad thing about being 2nd seed was that I got a bye through the first round of eliminations and so I had a four hour break from my initial poule round until I got to fence in the knock out rounds. So I had to fire myself back up again, ready for my next fight. This made the fight more difficult for me and I only went through 15-13 against Alice Watson (Scotland). But I was now into the quarter finals against Jessica Brooks (Australia) who I had never fenced before but looked very strong. It was a close match, but I was ahead all the way and eventually won 15-13. I was now into the semi-finals against Katie Hendra, also from England and my club mate. It was a very difficult fight and I only just won 15-14. I then had another wait until I fenced Jo Hutchison (England) in the final. I was initially up 8-6 in the fight, but she brought it back to win 15-10. Although I was a bit disappointed with my final fight, I was thrilled to walk away with a silver medal.

As England did so well in the individuals, it meant we were ranked 1st in the team competition. So we had a bye through the quarter finals and went straight into the semi finals. As there were five English fencers to pick the team of three from, I was subbed out of the first match so that I could fence in the final. Every member of the team had to fence in order for each of us to get a medal. So I watched our first match against Singapore from the side lines, cheering and giving tactical advice when I could. We won comfortably and so we were into the final against the home nation Australia. Now I had my chance to fence and as a team we pulled together really well to win easily 45-21. So not only did I come away from the Commonwealth Championships with a silver medal, I also have gold. I am very proud of my achievement and I would really like to thank the Royal British Legion Women’s Section for their continued sponsorship and support; I am extremely grateful and without it I would certainly not be achieving the same level of results.