Wrexham Fencing Club prides' itself on bringing on new and aspiring fencers and to this end they are proud to record that it has five junior and cadet fencers representing Great Britain at competitions around Europe. The five to be awarded their stripes are, Ben Roberts and Carolyn Benson foil, Adam Williams and Ben Hughes epee and Daniel Lumb at sabre.
Carolyn has been abroad with the British squad several times and will be travelling on this occassion to Poland with the Juniors. Ben has been selected for the Samalia International in Bratislava, Slovakia and for the Halle International, Germany. These competitions are at cadet level which is under 13, and eleven other fencers from all over Britain will be travelling with him. Adam Williams has represented the British team in the past but this time he will be joined by Ben Hughes when they travel to the Bonn International, Germany and to Modling, Austria. Dan Lumb also makes his first trip abroad going to Kenton, Germany to take part in a cadet sabre competition.
The foreign competitions vary greatly from the British style, in that all the fencers will be expected to take part in several poule matches, before the direct elimination rounds are reached. Most take part over two days, with only the best fencers going on to reach the final rounds on the second day.
With the future of fencing in mind, Wrexham fencing club have taken over the running of the Cheshire Schools competition, which has been a grounding in competitive fencing for many years. When the organisers expressed a wish to give up the tournament the Wexham fencing club committee thought that it would be a great loss to the younger fencers and so took on the organisation, and renamed it The Wrexham and Cheshire Schools, with it being run three times a year at Darland School, Rossett. The first of these new competitions was run recently with many of the younger Wrexham fencers taking part in their first competition. The day lead to mixed fortunes, in the various age groups. Luke Potts in the under 14's took the highest prize of the day for the club by taking the silver medal. In the same age group Issac Broadbent took 6th place. Olwen Marshall kept up the medal haul with a bronze in the Under 12's. In the under 12 boys Kier McGillvery took 10th, Steven Unit 11th, Huw Aston-Smith12 and Oliver Bostock 16th. In the under 10's Lawrence Price took 5th. These are very promising results for these children and they show great promise for the future of Welsh Fencing.
With future international fencing in mind several of the Wrexham youngsters attended at the Welsh Institute of Sport in Cardiff to take part in the British Youth Championship qualifiers. The actual championships will take place early next year in Stoke. Those qualifying this year are, Carolyn Benson, Luke potts and Stephanie Collister at foil, Stephanie Collister, Victoria McLeod and Ben Hughes at epee and Daniel Lumb and James Flemming at sabre. Carolyn, Ben, Stephanie and Daniel qualified through their finishing places last year when they all finished in the last eight.
