WARSAW PARA FENCING EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS 2022 REPORT

Maggie Maynard reports on the Para Fencing Wheelchair Fencing European Championships 2022, which took place in Warsaw.

(Due to staff illness, this report was delayed from its original date of publication – BF apologises for any inconvenience.)

Fencing started at 9am on Tuesday 29th November with Men’s Individual Epee Cat A, Piers Gilliver, Oliver Lam-Watson (16th) and Josh Waddell (18th).
Piers won GOLD.

At the same time Women’s Individual Sabre Cat A started, with Gemma Collis. (5th). At 1pm, Dimitri Coutya and Shah Rashid began with Men’s Individual Epee Cat B (11th). Dimitri Coutya won GOLD.

On Wednesday 30th November, the Men’s Epee Team event started. The GBR team was Piers Gilliver, Dimitri Coutya. Oliver Lam-Watson and Joshua Waddell. The team won GOLD.

Thursday 1st December saw every member of the GBR squad fencing. Dimitri Coutya won GOLD in the Individual Men’s Foil Cat B, and Shah Rashid came 13th. Piers Gilliver (7th), Oliver Lam-Watson (10th) and Joshua Waddell (17th) also took part in the Individual Men’s Foil Cat A. In the Individual Women’s Epee Cat B, Justine Moore finished 17th, whilst Gemma Collis and Emily Holder finished 5th and 17th in the Cat A, respectively.

On Friday 2nd December, the Men’s Foil Team event began. This was a hard-fought event, and with brilliant work from everyone, the GBR team finished with a brilliant GOLD!

Unfortunately, the ladies were unable to compete in the Epee Team event.

On Saturday 3rd December, the day started with Individual Men’s Sabre Cat A. Piers Gilliver and Oliver Lam-Watson fenced in this event, with Piers Gilliver winning GOLD and Oliver Lam-Watson coming 10th. Oliver has only recently started concentrating on Men’s Sabre, and is off to a good start.

The Individual Women’s Foil Cat B saw Justine Moore in action. In a tough field, she came 7th. In the Women’s Foil Cat A, GBR was represented by Emily Holder who finished 15th. Later that day, the Individual Men’s Sabre Cat B started. Dimitri Coutya came 8th and Shah Rashid 11th.

On Sunday 4th December, the Men’s Sabre Team of Piers Gilliver, Shah Rashid and Oliver Lam-Watson fenced. After some hard-fought matches, the team achieved 6th place overall.

At the end of the event, GBR was at the top of the medal table, and was awarded a great trophy as European Best Performing Team.

Full results are available here.

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