Deary storms to individual gold as GB pick up team silver and bronze

William Deary, 16 years old from Truro Fencing Club, fought his way to become the cadet sabre champion at the Meylan Eurosabre in France at the weekend.  He stormed through the first round winning all six of his fights and impressively only dropped four hits. 

In a field of 131, Deary was ranked first for the knockout stages.  This earned him a bye through the round of 128 which was followed by comprehensive victories over Rommelspacher (GER) 15-3, Kindler (GER) 15-6, Dubarry (FRA) 15-12 and Matias (FRA) 15-9.  In the semi-final he faced he faced the tough prospect of taking on the European Cadet Champion, Caranti (ITA).  Deary controlled the fight from the start, using his full repertoire of attacks, parry-ripostes and quick attacks on preparation, and comprehensively defeated the Italian 15-9.

The final pitched Deary against Patrice (FRA) who had eased past his compatriot and the number two seed, Martinez-Almansa in the other semi-final.  The toughest fight of the day followed for Deary in front of a partisan French crowd.  After a composed start, Deary led 8-5 at the break, but in the second half the French fencer came back strongly to level at 11-all.  Deary then forced his opponent onto the back foot with some strong attacks in the middle and after building a 13-11 lead, Deary held his nerve and took the title 15-13.

Commenting on his performance Deary said; “I felt really good going into the competition.  With my coach Chris Buxton and the team at Truro we’ve had a great period of preparation for this season and some good results already.  So I knew I was one of the contenders.  The atmosphere was brilliant, with all the GB guys behind me and it was a great feeling to get my first international title and to hear the national anthem on the podium”.

Joshua Maxwell also had an excellent day making the top eight and only just losing out 15-13 to the eventual silver medalist.  Isabel Turnbull of MX Fencing impressed in the girls’ event finishing thirteenth from a field of almost 120.

Great Britain also appeared on the podium in both the boys and the girls team events.  GB1’s team of Deary, Maxwell, Woodburn and Watt lost out in the boys semi-final to Germany to take the bronze medal.  A young GB2 team also finished an impressive sixth in the men’s event, just missing a semi-final place on indicators and taking an impressive win against the eventual champions Germany in the pool stage.  In the girls team event GB1’s team of Gladdish, Maxwell, Chart and Turnbull went one better and reached the final.  They were pipped at the post by France 1 but their silver medal was a strong result.

The trip was led by coaches Chris Buxton and Phil Sheppard-Foster, with Chef D’Equipe Pat Aiyenuro. Shortly after this promising medal haul Buxton said; “The whole squad put in a strong performance – 10 out of 12 of the boys squad made the L64, which is a big step forward and it’s pleasing for GB to pick up three international medals in one weekend.  From Will’s perspective, we’ve been working hard all year and we got our pre-season preparation phase just right over the summer.  We knew Will was capable of this level of performance and it’s good to see his hard work pay off.  Our main focus for the whole group remains on the World and European Championships, so we’re not getting carried away and we’ll be back in the salle this week working towards that goal.”  With the points gained at the event, Deary has moved to second in the European Cadet rankings.