Sophie Williams Blog

Nationals and Poland

The weekend before last I went to the Junior (Under 20) National Championships in Sheffield. Although I am ranked 2nd in the Junior Rankings I felt confident that I could win this year. The day started off pretty well, winning all of my poule fights without much difficulty. I then was seeded 1st and had a fairly nice draw through the early knockout rounds. In the Quarter-finals I got off to a shaky start, initially going 5-2 down against Libby Jones from Wales, however I then stepped up a gear and went on to win 15-6, thus putting me through to the semi-finals. I was a little over-confident in this round and made the fight more difficult than I needed to, eventually only winning 15-14. However I was through to the final against my best friend and biggest rival Jessica Davies, from Bristol UWE. I started well and at the break I was 8-4 up. Then in the 2nd half Jess came back to lead 13-12. At that moment I thought to myself that I wasn’t going to let a National championship slip by me again (I have come 2nd three times!) and I pulled out three good hits in a row to win 15-13, eventually making me National Champion!

Last week I started building on my performance to get ready for the first international of the season in Poland which was last weekend. I felt that I was peaking my performance at the right time. At the weekend my performance was brilliant at times, but also inconsistent, therefore meaning my result was not as good as I had hoped. I didn’t start strongly, losing a couple of fights which were winnable. In the middle of my poule I had won one fight and lost three which was not an ideal start to the competition. However I got my act together and focused on the next fight I had, against Ostojska (Poland) who was the strongest fencer in my poule. I managed to pull out one of my best performances to win the fight 5-1. This put me in the right frame of mind to win my last fight 5-1 as well, meaning that I had an ok seeding after the poule. 

In my last 128 direct elimination fight I came up against a fairly good Polish girl. I kept slipping behind in the fight and went 14-9 down. At this moment in time something changed, I felt a sudden drive of energy and subsequently won six hits in a row to win 15-14. Next I fenced Demonsant (France) and went 5-1 down at the beginning, however I pulled it back to be only 8-7 down at the break. I was then very unlucky in the second half and lost 15-10, even though I fenced incredibly well. In the end I finished 56th, which I was disappointed with.  However, Demonsant went on to finish 8th and Ostojska (who I beat in my poule) went on to win the competition, so there are definitely some positives to take away from it. My next competition is the Junior Europeans in a few weeks, so it’s time to get back into training for that!