Sophie Williams Blog

Senior National championships

GOLD AND BRONZE MEDALS AT SENIOR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

This weekend I went to Sheffield to compete in the British Fencing Championships and fenced at my best to achieve the bronze medal in the individual event and win gold as part of Truro Fencing Club in the team event.

The individual event went well from the beginning. I won all of my poule fights and was seeded joint 6th place with my club mate Katie Hendra. I then had a bye through the first elimination round, which meant I was then in the top 32. I went through that round with relative ease, winning 15-1; I was then into the top 16 and fenced Alice Watson and won again, which meant I was through to the quarter-finals against Helen Fairhead.  Again I fenced well and won 15-10. I was now in the semi-finals against Chrystal Nicoll, who is ranked number one in the UK.  I fenced well and at the break was only 8-6 down, but she stepped up a gear in the second half which I couldn’t quite match and I eventually lost 15-10. Even though I didn’t win, a bronze medal was a great result for me, and I hope that I can just improve from here! Chrystal went onto win the competition and is currently ranked 23 in the world.

On the Sunday I fenced in the team event for the Truro ‘A’ team alongside Louise Bond-Williams and Katie Hendra. As we had the best collective result from Saturday we got a bye through the poule rounds and went straight in to the elimination round as top seeds. Our first match was against Edinburgh which we won convincingly 45-22, and then in the semi-finals knocked out our Truro ‘B’ team. That meant that we were into the final against team Scimitar, who had a top team consisting of Jo Hutchison, Helen Fairhead and Jess Lacheta but we fenced our best match by far to beat them 45-21, meaning that we won the gold medal!

It was a fantastic weekend for me and it is really starting to feel like all the hard work that I have put into training this past year is coming together. I now have a long gap in my competition schedule, so first I will have a week off and then get back into training ready for next season.