Sophie Williams Blog

Number 1 in GB after success in Moscow

It has been a hectic but very successful month for me, travelling to Russia to compete at the U20 European Championships.

The trip almost didn’t happen due to some confusion between various fencing federations but luckily my visa was finally processed the day before I flew out! Once that had been cleared the competition went more smoothly. In the poule I didn’t get off to the best start, losing the first two 5-4 and 5-2. But then I beat the top ranked Hungarian (Varhelyi) 5-4, which boosted my confidence, and then I won the next two 5-3 against a strong Italian and 5-4 against a Czech fencer. My last fight was close and I narrowly lost 5-4 to the German, Kwindinski, which meant I was seeded 17th going into the elimination rounds.

In the last 32 I drew Gardos (Hungary) who was seeded one place higher than me. I got off to a great start going 8-1 up by the half way break. In the second half she narrowed the gap but I managed to hold on to win 15-9. This meant I was through to the last 16 against the number one seed Marton (Hun). Again I got off to a good start, going 8-7 up at the break and the second half was strong as well, trading hit for hit until 14-14. The last hit was controversial and the referee awarded the victory to Marton. Although I was disappointed to have lost, I can take a lot of positives away from my performance and it boosted my national ranking to number 1 and my world ranking to number 22. With this result I also qualified for the Junior World Championships to be held in Jordan in April.
Later in the week I performed well in the team event, leading GB to victory against Germany with one of my most impressive fights of my career. Going into the last match the team trailed 40-29, but I managed to close out 16-4, to win the match 45-44. Overall the team was placed 6th, improving on our initial seeding of 7th.

This was a very positive start to the Junior season for me and the next competition is a major world cup event in Spain.