Sophie Williams Blog

The Nationals in Sheffield

The Nationals this year didn’t quite go to plan! Although I fenced very well I was just a bit unlucky on the day. In the preliminary poule round, I won four fights and lost one, only 5-4, to Kira Roberts of Lazlo’s club in the North-East of England. This put me at 12th seed after the poules overall.  I then drew Maggie McWilliams, also from Truro Fencing Club.  It was a close fight at the beginning before I pulled ahead and managed to maintain the lead for the rest of the fight. That meant I was through to the last 16 against Kira Roberts, who had already narrowly beaten me earlier that day. I got off to a bad start, going 8-3 down initially, but after getting some helpful coaching at the break I managed to pull it back, eventually getting to 14-14 each. The last hit of that fight was possibly the most unfortunate thing that could have happened.  I went for a beautifully timed hit, which landed directly on the mask. However, there must have been a faulty connection or something as my hit didn’t register on the electrical equipment and Kira quickly followed up and hit me, so I lost 15-14. An incredibly frustrating moment for me, but I know that I am capable of doing a lot better and it was out of my control in the end. I finished 10th place eventually.

Despite a disappointing result for me, it was good for Truro Fencing Club as Louise Bond-Williams (also on the performance program with me at Truro) went on to take gold and defend her title of National Champion.

On Sunday I competed in the team event at the Nationals for Millfield School. In fencing a team is made up of three fencers and in a fight it is a relay up to 45 hits, 5 hits per bout, with every fencer fencing each fencer from the other team once. We fenced very well in our preliminary round, winning both our poule fights. We were then in the semi-finals against Lazlo’s.  We fought well but they were a stronger team together than we were and pulled a long way ahead. In the last fight it was me against Kira Roberts (again!) and all though I was a long way behind I fenced very well scoring 10 hits, but I couldn’t quite pull it all the way back and so we came 3rd, which was a very respectable result.

The next competition isn’t until September, so I have a hard month’s training ahead of me to get back on top form again.