Jordan & Sheffield claim silver whilst Cooper picks up bronze 

The Epee Junior World Cup season began this weekend in Bahrain and it was a great weekend for British fencers as Owen Jordan and Laura Sheffield claimed silver medals and Matthew Cooper picked up a bronze.

Men’s Epee

Sixty-five fencers took part in this event and Owen Jordan and Matthew Cooper aced their poules heading into the direct elimination as number two and three seeds respectively.  Matthew Dickinson and Will East won four of their five first round poules so also comfortably qualified for the next round.  East was defeated in the round of 64 but the remainder made it through to the round of 16.

Jordan knocked out teammate Dickinson 15-14 while Cooper overcame Yegor Fateyev of Kazakhstan.  Both fencers advanced into the semi-finals with confident wins.  The first semi-final saw Jordan beat Gaetani of Italy with super fast parry ripostes and a succession of late hits to make the gold medal match.  Cooper faced up against world No. 2 Jurka of the Czech Republic but couldn’t continue his run of victories and had to settle for bronze losing 15-10.

Jurka raced to an 8-4 lead in the final.  Jordan battled hard but could never get on terms and eventually lost 15-9 leaving with the silver medal.

After the competition Jordan said, “I am very pleased that I managed to secure second place at the first World Cup of the season and doing it with team mate Matt made it even more enjoyable.  I would thank the Epee club whose charitable funded helped me with my travel costs for this event and the coaches and fencers at Leon Paul Epee.”

Full results here and you can watch the podium matches here.

Women’s Epee

Laura Sheffield was the only British fencer amongst a field of thirty-two on Sunday and she won five of her six first round matches.  A bye through the round of 32 was followed by two victories over fencers from Kazakhstan.  She the beat Egyptian Huzayem 9-7 in a cagey semi-final before narrowly losing out on the gold medal 15-14 to Paula Jukic of Croatia.

Jon Willis, British Epee Manager said, “It was a great start to the season – three medals at the first World Cup of the season is the perfect start.  I hope this weekend’s results inspires all British Epee fencers.  It’s a endorsement of the work the Epee Club are doing with their charitable fund and I’d like to say thank you to everyone who has donated to it.”

Full results here and you can watch the podium matches here.