Chichester fencers shine among best in the business

Chichester Fencing Club fielded a small but excellent team at the Sussex Open Fencing Championships in Portslade.
Peter Beadle and Isaac JolleyPeter Beadle and Isaac Jolley
Peter Beadle and Isaac Jolley

The competition is a senior national event with fencers travelling from all over Britain and abroad – from France, Italy and even America – for high-level, hotly-contested competition.

On day one Kathryn Evans, Peter Beadle and Robin Elliott were all competing in the epee, a tough event where everywhere is on target and accuracy is of the essence, very much ‘physical chess’.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Both Evans and Elliott fenced superbly, narrowly missing out on medals; Evans using this as a warm-up event for her forthcoming south-east veterans’ Winton Cup debut and Elliott finishing in a fantastic fifth place despite his tender years.

This left Beadle to try to take the most difficult step to make it to the semi-finals, which he took with his usual flare and aplomb, taking the third -lace medal with a wonderful mixture of precision and agility, despite being his first competition since a recent severe injury to his leg incapacitated him, a really brilliant result.

Next day it was the foilists’ turn to compete – a gentler weapon with only the torso being a valid target, a weapon of style, athleticism and grace.

Chichester fielded two 16-year-olds, Joshua Briffett and Isaac Jolley. Briffett fenced superbly in his first Sussex Open foil event having recently switched weapons from epee, a steep learning curve indeed.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Everything was then left to young Jolley to emulate his epeeist club-mate to get into the medals and recreate his amazing success from the previous year – when aged still only 15, he narrowly lost to his senior club-mate George Hendrie in the final to take the silver medal.

Jolley proved why he is Great Britain’s number one cadet at under-17 to take the title of Sussex open foil champion in a devastating display of foil fencing at its best, beating a top French senior foilist as well as several junior (under-20), senior and veteran Great Britain team members, a truly flawless performance.

If you would like to give this fabulous sport a try, contact Sharon Blackman on 01243 822753 or email [email protected]

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking sports news where you live.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be among the first to know what’s going on.

1 Make this website your homepage

2 Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/pages/Sport-Sussex

3 Follow us on Twitter @SportSussex

4 Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

Share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!

Related topics: