Carolina Stutchbury wins second European Championships Junior Foil title, with Sameer Sunder-Rajan winning silver in Cadet Epee and David Kelly taking bronze in Cadet Foil.
Event schedule and results for juniors is here.
Event schedule and results for cadets is here.
The 18-year-old foil fencer Carolina Stutchbury took her second European title after a win in 2022 at the Naples EFC Cadet & Junior European Championship held at the end of February 2024.
It was the highlight of a strong week for GBR, which included some strong performances across all weapons and two other individual medals.
GBR opened their account on the very first day in the cadet men’s epee competition, as Sameer Sunder-Rajan took a silver medal, in a close final with Italian Michele Queiroli that finished 15-13. Sameer had been posting strong results all season, but this was a very special medal. “It’s a kind of confirmation as to what I’ve been doing recently, and my improvement in the sport.” he said afterwards.
“I’ve not been building myself up to have too high expectations, but after I got to the 32 my confidence was building and I was really happy.”
The GBR squad didn’t have to wait long for another medal, as the next day David Kelly took a bronze medal in cadet foil after the run of his life, including a giant-killing win over Frenchman Ulisse Parpeyrat Fournel, the second seed. “I have no idea what to say, this has been an unbelievable day.” said David.
“I cannot stop smiling, this has been a dream come true of years in the making. All the hard work and effort came together on the day. I would love to thank my club, my coach Keith Cook, my family and of course my team mates.”
The cadet team events were tougher contest, but a special well done needs to go to the cadet women’s foillists who fought hard to make the last four but couldn’t get past the tough finals opposition of Poland and Ukraine, and finished in fourth place.
The cadet women’s sabre team didn’t have a great competition, despite posting win after win on the circuit, but the team – here as Hui Xin Sezille, Maya Sutton, Keira Donnelly-Sallows and Tosin Ononaiye – took home a trophy for being the number one ranked EFC fencers of the season, as did Sameer Sunder-Rajan for being the number one cadet epeeist.
It was the turn of the juniors and all eyes were on Carolina Stutchbury who had come straight from the senior World Cup event in Cairo. After brushing past Kristina Petrova of Ukraine 15-5 to make the semifinal, she had a little more trouble against Matilde Molinari of Italy, before a superbly aggressive display in the final against top seed Polina Volobueva saw her run away with the win 15-8. It was her second European title after winning in 2022.
“What an awesome day! It’s been a challenge leaving the Cairo senior World Cup and coming straight here, but BF helped me manage my processes and it all came together today.” she said.
“I’m so happy and I’d like to thank my personal coach Dimitri and all of the BF support staff, as well as Epic Fencing Club, SCAD Fencing, my GBR teammates and my coach on the day Ben Peggs.”
All four of the GBR men’s individual foilists made it through to the last 32 of the individual competition, but couldn’t push through to the last stages. In the women’s foil team event, a stunning display of resilience saw them defeat the top seeds Italy 45-41 to make the last four.
In the end, it wasn’t to be a medal day, but the women’s foil team came incredibly close, losing the final match with Poland 43-44 after a heroic recovery from a seven point deficit. The fourth place finish was the best result on a day that also saw a top eight finish for the women’s sabres and a ninth place spot for the men’s epeeists after two strong place finish results.
It was a strong performance on the penultimate day which showed just what a force to be reckoned with GBR are on this level, after a strong season and with the Worlds still to come.
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