THE SWORD British Fencing Magazine JANUARY 2014 A TRIBUTE TO MATTHEW THOMPSON (1956-2013) P16 FIE CELEBRATES CENTENARY IN LAVISH STYLE P19 NEW LEON PAUL FENCING CENTRE P23 THE SAINSBURY’S SCHOOL GAMES P33 Combative KRUSE Richard Kruse is World Combat Games champion P18 JANUARY 2014 Editor Malcolm Fare Pyndar Lodge, Hanley Swan, Worcs WR8 0DN T: 01684 311197 Welcome to THE sword F: 01684 311250 E: [email protected] Print Warwick Printing Co Ltd Caswell Road, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire CV31 1QD T: 01926 883355 F: 01926 883575 Design and Layout Jon Labram T: 020 7674 7171 E: [email protected] Advertising BFA T: 0208 742 3032 E: [email protected] British Fencing accepts no responsibility for the contents of advertisements and reserves the right to refuse inclusion. NEWS The Sword, a quarterly magazine founded 4-6 AGM – Finances; Growth in the North-East; Open forum; in 1948, is distributed to all individual Olympic fencer chairs IOC Commission; Foil co-ordinator; and club members of British Fencing and its affiliates. It can also be obtained on Navy fencing wins top award; drop in fencing participation; subscription – UK £20 FIE congress decisions Overseas airmail £26 – direct from HQ. MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR Contributions are welcome. Photographs 8 New year message from David Teasdale should include the names of those pictured and the photographer. REPORTS 10-15 BEAZLEY BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIPS Views expressed in The Sword do not Karim Bashir reports on the senior British championships necessarily reflect those of British Fencing. No part of the magazine may be 16-17 WHEELCAHIR CHAMPIONSHIPS reproduced without permission from the The British Disabled Fencing Association held their national editor/photographer. championships alongside the British championships in Sheffield Front cover image 18 KRUSE IS WORLD COMBAT GAMES CHAMPION Richard Kruse wins the World Combat Games men’s foil title (Photo: Serge Timacheff) Richard Kruse puts in a sparkling performance at the World Combat Games to beat the world’s best foilists Beazley sponsorship Beazley has a five year partnership with 19-22 FIE CELEBRATES CENTENARY IN LAVISH STYLE British Fencing as its premier partner and Malcolm Fare attends the most extravagant fencing party ever held official insurer. Through the sponsorship, Beazley aims to make a meaningful 23-24 LEON PAUL FENCING CENTRE contribution to the continued development Jon Willis describes the new fencing centre developed by Leon Paul of the sport in Britain, both at the highest Matthew THOMPSON (1956-2013) competitive level and through fencing clubs and schools throughout the country. 26 A tribute to Matthew Thompson INSIGHTS 27-28 Breast and chest protector development Malcolm Fare outlines the history of protectors for fencers FENCING TIME VERSION 4 29 Colin Walls describes the latest version of the Fencing Time tournament program BOOK REVIEWS For up-to-date news, photos, videos 30 Malcolm Fare on Fencing at Westminster School 1766-2013 and games, visit our dedicated microsite: beazleybritishfencing.com by Edmund Gray & Edmund Wareham ROUND-UP BRITISH FENCING 31-32 Vets World Championships, Welsh Open, Sussex Open YOUNG FENCER twitter.com/britishfencing 33-34 Sainsbury’s School Games Follow us on Facebook 35-41 RESULTS www.britishfencing.com Next deadline: 24th February JANUARY 2014 THE SWORD 2 NEWS Fencing news OLYMPIC FENCER CHAIRS IOC COMMISSION AGM – FINANCES As chair of the International Olympic The clearest explanation ever given of British Fencing’s financial situation was the Committee’s Athletes’ Commission, verdict on John Troiano’s presentation of the accounts at the AGM. He began by going Claudia Bokel of Germany, Olympic through the bad news: a heavy deficit of £216,000 was recorded for the financial year epee silver medallist in 2004, 2012-13, made up as follows: led an Athlete Career Programme delegation in November to six • £99k on BF events, of which £47k was on the FIE women’s sabre England Cup now National Olympic Committees in cancelled, £33k on championships at senior, junior and cadet level and£8k on the southern Africa to hold workshops Eden Cup/Leon Paul. with local athletes and help them • £25k excess spend over budget on legal fees, the bulk of which being appeals over move into their post-competition Olympic selection. careers. Since the programme was • £24k of bad debts written off – a one-off occurrence. established in 2005, it has provided • £21k on the Olympic Games. career development and job • £19k on miscellaneous expenses. placement services to more than • £14k excess spend on The Sword. 10,000 Olympic athletes from over • £14k on other write downs – final settlement of £6k relating to the 2009 junior 100 countries. world championships in Belfast; £8k reduced stock value. As in the previous tax year, income had been just over £2 million, almost half of which was in the form of grants from UK Sport, with £172k coming from membership fees AGM – OPEN FORUM and £70k from sponsorship. Reserves were down to £292,648. In response to a question from Ronald Velden about whether The better news was that the Board now saw the management accounts each month there had been any improvement and had to approve any new expenditure, and new auditors, haysmacintyre, had been in Britain’s performance since the appointed to ensure that financial statements were accurate and clear. The Board’s appointment of the performance goal is to return the budget to balance over the next two years. director, chief executive Peter King said the World Class Performance Programme was not designed to get more fencers to achieve a L64 or AGM – Growth IN THE NORTH-EAST better; it was focused on success Beth Davidson outlined the progress made in the North-East following a £250,000 in seven years’ time. grant from Sport England in 2008, when she was appointed Fencing Development Officer. The aim was to increase participation in four years to 1000, but in that time more than 5000 people have had a go at fencing in the region. Another target was DROP IN FENCING to increase the number of leader coaches to 50 in the three years to 2012; in fact, PARTICIPATION 220 have become Go Fence leaders, among them 69 unemployed young people who The latest Active People survey have in turn introduced more than 800 people from their communities to fencing. from Sport England of once-a week Although the fencing project finished in 2013, Sport England has introduced a new participation in funded sports by 3-year multi-sports programme. Quick to seize an opportunity, Beth has had those aged 16+ shows a decline in wheelchair fencing accepted as a different sport. the number of people fencing from 13,600 in 2005/6 to 10,400 last year. Over the past seven years, only five out of 30 sports have shown any increase in regular participation. BEDFORD SPORTS COACH OF THE YEAR award Performance coach and coach educator Jonathan Katz has won the Bedford Sports Coach of the Year award. He was sports psychologist to the boys cadet sabre squad at last year’s cadet world championships. (Photo - Sylvia Earl) JANUARY 2014 THE SWORD 4 NAVY FENCING WINS TOP AWARD The Royal Navy men’s fencing team has been awarded Best Team at the RN’s annual sports awards, beating off stiff competition from rugby union, judo and cycling. It is the first time the team has won the Royal Navy’s top sporting accolade, and comes on the back of a successful season crowned by victory over the Army and RAF at the 2013 Interservices Fencing Competition. First competed in 1939, the Interservices pits swordsmen from all three services against each other in a day of intense but friendly competition. The Royal Navy were regular winners until 1957, when bayonet fencing was dropped from the competition. Since then the sport has been dominated by the other services, with a 20-year winning streak by the Army before the RAF rose to dominance in the 1980s. The Royal Navy did not win the title again until 2004 and since then have been snapping at the heels of the RAF fencers – narrowly losing the 2012 Interservices by one point. “In the early days, the fact that we had Royal Marines fencing bayonet led to numerous victories for the RN,” said Commander Mark Barton, Chairman of Navy Fencing. FOIL CO-ORDINATOR “It’s taken us a while to get over losing that weapon, but we’re back on form now Sophie Troiano, who represented and are looking to retain the title for as long as we can.” Great Britain for more than a decade and recently retired from international fencing, has been appointed foil co-ordinator on the International Youth Committee. She will be responsible for leading, managing and acting as representative for the foil cadet and junior age groups. Mark Nelson-Griffiths continues as assistant foil co-ordinator. Sophie competed at the London 2012 Olympic Games and was ranked first in the British foil rankings last year. Second Sea Lord Vice Admiral David Steel presents the team with their trophy NORTH EAST REGION ACHIEVE THREE MORE YEARS OF FUNDING Fencing North East has been granted £100,000 by Sport England through the Community Sport Activation Fund to continue its award winning work for a further three years. The funding will allow North East Regional Development Officer Beth Davidson to continue her role full-time in the region, focussing on growing the sport in deprived areas and disabled fencing. The proposal was developed by Beth by bringing together a partnership of Durham University, Northumbria University, British Fencing, England Fencing, Street Games, The Princes Trust, Stockton Riverside College and Fencing North East, all of which are ROGER BARNES providing support to the project through direct and in-kind funding.