Chichester Fencing Club

11th City of Chichester Open 2019

 

Saturday July 27th 2019
Sunday July 28th 2019
In association with Chichester Fencing Club and Chichester District Council

FOR THE RESULTS CLICK HERE

11th City of Chichester Open – Individual, Mixed Teams and Wheelchair Competition

The City of Chichester Open took place over the weekend of 27-28 July at the Westgate Leisure Centre in Chichester.

Alongside the Open, we held a small Wheelchair event – Mixed Epee on Saturday and Mixed Sabre on Sunday. This is the first time in recent years that an Open has included a wheelchair event, with an individual and team event, and we are delighted to report that is was very successful. We had participants from Blackpool, Durham, Northampton, Grimsby, Leeds, as well as London and Chichester. Many of the fencers in the main competition had never seen wheelchair fencing before, and were fascinated to see how fast and tough it is.

60 men’s epeeists, 29 women’s epeeists, 31 men’s foilists and 16 women’s foilists took part in friendly but hard-fought matches in the main event, with 6 fencers in the wheelchair epee and 4 in the sabre.
After the Individual finals had been fenced, we held the Team event. There were 15 Mixed Epee Teams, and 4 Mixed Foil Teams. There were some close matches, and good fun was had by all.

The competitions were pulled together expertly by Alex Savin, and had the benefit of live, online results throughout. Despite the intense and fast-moving competition, it proceeded efficiently, and finished in good time. (So much so that one of the older, less fit fencers was heard to beg the referee for “more recovery time”.

We were grateful for the expert support of Allstar-Uhlmann UK, with Graham, Michelle, David and Andy as always working hard to keep everything working perfectly. Medallists were also given vouchers for Allstar-Uhlmann equipment, which is very generous.
Also indispensible to the event were the members of Chichester Fencing Club, who, under the direction of Coach Sharon Blackman, gave support to everyone, as well as providing refreshments on both days for the referees and other officials. Special thanks to Andi Elliott for her sandwich-making skills.

The aim of the organisers of the City of Chichester Open has always been to provide a friendly, well run competition in a great venue. We are so pleased to have been able to add the Wheelchair event this year, and hope to continue this in future years.

Report by Maggie Maynard.