This inaugural international fencing event from Jan 22 to 24, organised by Fencing Singapore, is the newest one in our local fencing scene. Held at the Suntec International Convention Centre Halls 601 and 602, which will be the official Singapore 2010 competition venue for fencing for the upcoming Youth Olympic Games in August, the competition was open to the public, who didn’t have to buy tickets to watch.

There were 7 categories – Boys Foil, Boys Sabre, Boys Epee, Girls Foil, Girls Sabre, Girls Epee and Team Event in this competition which spanned 3 days. As this was a “cadet” competition, fencers had to be between 12 and 7 to participate. Singapore was represented by about 20 fencers.

(All images by Andra Chua)

In fencing, there’re 3 age divisions – Cadet is for fencers 17 and younger, Junior for fencers aged 20 and below, and Senior refer to those at least 21. The purpose of this categorisation is acknowledge the differing abilities due to age, making it fairer for the participants.

In the finals, Clive Leu, 16, who represented Singapore, beat his 15-year-old opponent from Hong Kong to clinch the gold medal for the Boys’ Sabre event. For the Boys’ Foil event, 5 Singapore fencers qualified for the top 16 positions. They did exceptionally well, fencing their best, and 2 of them successfully moved on to the quarter-finals (top 8), where they were up against fencers from other countries like Hong Kong, Japan, and Taipei, who had fencing experience ranging from 1 to 5 years.

One thing about this event that’s not usually seen in local fencing competitions was the colour-coded fencing pistes. The competition area was separated into 4 areas identified by their colour: Red, Blue, Yello and Green. This aided the audience visually, when the commentators announced the respective winners for each competition or “bout” (round), as referred to in fencing.

In usual local competitions, a team would require 3 to 5 fencers in the same weapon category, 3 being the main fencers for the team with 1 to 2 optional reserve fencers. This competition, however, had a unique trait in which the team event required 6 members, which would be made up of 1 fencer per weapon and gender category.

The foreign fencers and their coaches were impressed with the organisation of this event. Daniel Chan, New Zealand’s team manager, told UrbanWire that everything was well organised and on par with some top-level tournaments he has been to.

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