It has been a busy time in the WCP since the last PD update in mid September. Training for both the foil and sabre squads is now in full swing with the start of the new senior international season well underway.
For the WCP, this kicked off with Men’s Sabre competing in Dakar. Performances across the board in the individual event have begun to reward the hard work over the last two competitive seasons and more recently in pre season training. Four of the six athletes on the Programme went through to the L64 on day two of the competition. The squad will build on these performances to ensure that they can continue to deliver competitively throughout the season. In the Team event, the guys started as they finished last season with a great team effort to finish the event in 6th place. The squad are currently in Paris at a training camp in INSEP and will use this time to further develop their fencing skills and areas for development.
As I highlighted in the September update we have made the decision to move to the new refined Pathway structure with immediate effect. In the October half term, Cyril ran his first ‘detection’ camp to assess the current cohort of junior and cadet athletes. As a result we identified nine athletes who will join the Men’s Sabre PF Programme to sit alongside the four mens and three women foilists already identified and in training at the ETC.
As you will have seen from my announcement on the website, Andrey Klyushin decided to leave the WCP following the Olympic Games Rio. Pierre Guichot has taken over as the new World Class Programme Head Coach and we are currently recruiting a new WCP National Coach in Men’s Foil. We are optimistic that we will have a high calibre of candidates for the position and will anticipate that we will be able to make an announcement early in the New Year.
The Men’s Foil programme is also back in full training with Turin as the first senior international competition for WCP Foil athletes. Whilst Marcus has extended his break, both James and Richard are back in training and will compete in Turin. They have been joined by three new athletes on the UK Sport funded Podium Potential Programme:
Over the past month we have continued to develop the Pathway and the funding submission to SE to ensure we can deliver our overall mission of consistent junior world medals by 2020. British Fencing submitted our application for funding to SE at the end of last week. We expect a decision from their Board following their meeting in December 2016.
In order to drive the Pathway forward we will be recruiting for a new Talent Pathway Manager who will have the responsibility for delivering this strand of the BF Strategy going forwards.
Alex Newton
Performance Director
November 2016
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