Carolina Stutchbury took home the bronze medal at the 2024 Senior European Championships.
This year’s event took place in Basel, Switzerland from the 18th-23rd of June 2024. GBR arrived with a strong mindset, ready to face some of Europe’s best fencers.
The first day of the championships saw David Sosnov and Jaimie Cook excel in the individual Senior Men’s Foil, both achieving a last 16 result in their first senior Europeans.
As two of GBR’s younger athletes, this provided a great learning experience for their future fencing careers.
Jaimie finished in 9th place, missing out on the top eight in a tough match against Maxime Pauty of France, 15-6.
David finished in 12th place, and this achievement is an impressive follow up to taking home the silver medal in April, at the Junior World Championships in Riyadh earlier in 2024.
Pat Aiyenuro, a member of the BF board, attended the European championships. She says David’s and Jaimie’s performance was a standout moment:
“We have a relatively young team compared to a lot of other countries. Senior foil is so hard to break into. They are both still juniors. They were both so professional in their approach and outlook.”
“It didn’t matter to them the age or the experience of their opponent, they were fearless.”
Carolina Stutchbury gave an unforgettable performance on day two of the European championships, where she won the bronze medal in the individual Senior Women’s Foil.
Carolina, just 18, has had an incredible year, where she made it to the final at the European Olympic Zonal competition in Luxembourg, and came agonisingly close to an Olympic spot.
She gave an excellent display of attacking strength in the semi-final, going toe-to-toe with Arianna Errigo of Italy – currently ranked fourth in the world. Carolina did not give up easily, with a final score of 14-15.
“I am very happy to have my first Senior medal (of hopefully many more to come). I went into the day feeling a little shaky so I’m happy I was able to persevere to land a bronze.” she said.
“I would like to first thank my parents for all they sacrifice for me and my coach Dimitri Romanov for working with me. I would also like to thank all my teammates who stayed to watch as well as Michael Janda for his support on the day. Feeling very excited for the future.”
Day three of the Senior championships saw another Junior shine. Alec Brooke took an 11th place in the individual Senior Men’s Epee. This was another brilliant follow up to Riyadh 2024, where he brought home a silver medal, and another promising stepping stone in Alec’s fencing journey.
The final three days of the Senior championships consisted of the team events, where GBR faced some tough competition across all three weapons, while still displaying excellent sportsmanship.
A standout moment was a strong result for GBR’s women’s epee team. Katrina Smith Taylor, Danielle Lawson, Susan Sica and Julia Caron finished in 8th place.
The team demonstrated a strong resolve against Ukraine, taking a 37-36 victory, with Susan taking the last point in the final fight against Vlada Kharkova.
They then went on to face Hungary, where they put up a strong fight against tough competition. The team just missed out on the semi-finals (45-35).
Our men’s foil team showed great teamwork, winning 45-41 against Austria and then making a 45-43 comeback against Belgium.
Pat Aiyenuro went on to say this year’s Senior European Championships were a huge success:
“Everyone was very welcoming. It was a very well organised event and organisers had really taken their time to get everything right. I would like to thank the coaching team, they were, as usual, very professional and an absolute pleasure to work with.”
Event schedule and results for the 2024 Senior European Championships is here.
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