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27 Dec 2000. New Fencing Site Launched!
The Fencing Foils, a site devoted to fencing around the world is now online!
7 Jan 2001. For the First Time in 27 Years, the University of the Witwatersrand Fencing Club Wins the South African Student Sports Union Fencing Championships in December 2000.
The championships were hosted by The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) from 4 to 7 December 2000, but all the actual fencing took place at Gennady Tyshler's Fencing School (TFS) in Linbro Park, Johannesburg.
The venue proved to be an excellent choice and once again proved itself as the best place to fence in South Africa.
The competition was run smoothly and there were very few delays caused by faulty reels or malfunctioning boxes.
The excellent facillities at TFS certainly had a major role to play in the smooth running of the competition.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the information technology that was on display.
The lack of a compatible printer was a serious problem and meant that all pool sheets had to be generated by hand.
However this was a relatively minor glitch in an otherwise well put together and run competition.
The competition kicked off on Monday morning, with Ladies' Foil and Men's Epee. Jackie Amm from Wits fenced very well and beat Shih-Ya Huang from the University of Cape Town (UCT) in a well contested and entertaining final.
In the Men's Epee, Jaco Wiese from Stellenbosch (US) was beaten by Barend Erasmus from the University of Pretoria (TUKS).
Erasmus deserves special praise as he has not been fencing competitively for a number of years now and this competition marked his return to competition.
The individual competition was wrapped up on Tuesday with Men's Foil, Ladies' Epee and Open Sabre being fenced.
Disaster struck in the semi-finals of the Ladies' Epee.
Kelly Wilson (TUKS) came up against her long time friend and training partner, Claudia Holgate (who incidentally is also the African Ladies' Epee Champion) from the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU).
Mid way through the bout with Holgate marginally in the lead, Wilson attacked into Holgate's preparation.
Wilson's fie approved blade penetrated Holgate's 800 Newton fie approved jacket on the bicep, snagging the point.
This caused Wilson's blade to break.
It continued, impacting upon Holgate's chest, mere millimetres above her breast plate.
Holgate was granted an injury break and was just preparing to resume fencing, when she felt faint and nearly collapsed.
Holgate was rushed to hospital, where it was established that the blade had hit her ribcage with such force that a piece of cartillage had broken off the ribs and punctured her lung.
This serious injury underlies the need for fencers to remember that we participate in a potentially dangerous sport and we need to remain cognisant of the need for safety at all times.
Wilson went on to beat Amm in the final.
Ian Jonker proved victorious in the Men's Foil.
The Open Sabre started at 2 pm and the first round was only completed by 5 pm.
This caused a problem, as dinner was being served at 5:30 and if sabreurs miss their dinner, as I am sure you will all realise, they can get very tetchy and a tetchy person with a sabre in his/her hand is not exactly a good idea.
The competition was thus adjourned to allow hungry fencers a chance to fill their collective abdominal voids.
Thanks must once again be extended to Genna, who allowed us to impinge upon his usual training time and space so that we could finnish the competition (we were supposed to have completed all fencing by 5:30, thus allowing Genna to give lessons to his students).
After dinner it was established that Wits had done extremely well, with 3 of the 4 fencers they had entered (Rudi Sokuler, Jackie Amm and Dickon Jayes) occupying the top 3 rankings.
Frederik Jansen (RAU) the pre-tournament favourite had fenced very poorly in the seeding round and even considered himself lucky to have qualified at all.
The fencing proceeded quickly and the hall rang to the shouts of the sabreurs and the clang of blades.
Jansen had put his early jitters behind him and stormed through to the semi-finals, obliterating the opposition in a show of brilliant sabre fencing.
In the semi-final, he came up against Sokuler and in a very competitive bout, Jansen utilised his speed and attacks from long distance to render Sokuler's counter attacks useless.
This set up a final between Jansen and Jayes, which Jansen won convincingly, despite conceding 6 points without reply when he was 12-4 up.
With the individual competition completed, the tournament moved into the Team Championships phase.
This deviated from international norms by following a round robin format, with all teams fencing each other in a 'league', with the winner being the team who had fenced best over-all (this has long been the tradition at student championships in South Africa).
In the Ladies' events, UCT proved to be victorious, taking both Foil and Epee titles, with Wits coming second to them.
This was somewhat surprising as it was generally believed that the Wits team was marginally stronger than UCT's, but the UCT ladies pulled through and were able to neutralise Amm (who was admittedly tired after her heroics over the last 2 days in the individual events) whilst Huang managed to blitz the remaining Wits fencers.
US proved to be by far the top mens Epee team on Wednesday, not losing a single match on the way to a convincing win. This was hardly surprising considering they took second and third places in the Individual Men's Epee.
On Thursday morning the championships entered what was arguably their most exciting phase: Men's Foil.
Things began relatively calmly, with Wits fencing US.
In this match, Wits was able to race to a 22 point lead however, due to some very poor tactical decisions they lost this lead and in the final bout Jayes had to make up a 7 point deficit against Johan de Villiers.
This proved too great a lead, especially as Jayes got off to a bad start and Wits lost the match 45-43.
Meanwhile, the University of Natal Durban (UND) beat RAU.
Wits then went on to beat RAU and in a closely fought match UCT lost to their provincial rivals US.
UCT also beat RAU whilst UND in a toughly contested match beat US.
Wits now fenced UND and beat them quite easily.
US now beat RAU.
This left the competition delicately and uniquely poised.
US had finnished all its matches and had 3 victories and 1 defeat.
UND and Wits both had 1 match left both teams were also tied on 2 victories and 1 defeat.
UCT still had 2 matches left, so far they had lost 1 match and won 1 match.
At this late stage, any one of these 4 teams (US, UND, UCT or Wits) could still win the competition.
UCT and Wits were first up.
Wits took an early lead through Jayes which was steadily extended by each Wits fencer, until Jonker came on the piste.
Each time he fenced a Wits fencer the lead seemed to evaporate and thus the match see-sawed as the lead continually changed hands.
At last the third last bout was finnished.
Mark d Araujo (Wits) had fought hard and earned a 1 point lead.
Sokuler now extended the lead to 5 points: the score was 40-35 to Wits when Jayes and Jonker stepped on to the piste; the last time they would meet in these championships!
In a match watched by every fencer in the hall Jonker fenced well and fought hard, but Jayes fought even harder.
No quarter was asked or given.
The president was placed under extreme pressure on every point (by spectators and fencers alike) and he had to ask for quiet on more than one occassion.
Finally Jonker advanced his blade searching for an opening through Jayes' defence.
Jayes retreated, saw an opening and attacked.
A clash of blades.
A shout and a clenched fist.
The president stands motionless and silent for what seems like an age.
"Beat attack in the preparation!" is his verdict.
Wits has won!
Now US and Wits both have 3 victories and 1 defeat, but Wits has a better hits scored less hits received index!
If UND beats UCT they will win the foil competition but, if UCT can beat UND Wits will win.
In a nerve racking match UCT overcame UND, leaving Wits in first place, US in second, UCT in third, UND in fourth and RAU last.
Like the Individual Open sabre, the Team Open Sabre was a protracted affair.
As soon as the Ladies' Epee and Men's Foil competitions were completed, the Team Open Sabre commenced.
Wits (Amm, Jayes and Sokuler) proved too strong a combination and won the competition without losing a single match.
Only RAU came close to beating them, but Sokuler fenced brilliantly in the final bout (against) Jansen, making up a 7 point deficit and winning the match 45-43.
Wits beat all other teams convincingly, taking the lead early in the match and almost always holding on to it for the rest of the match.
Amm was a great find, she fenced very well and proved that in fencing men and women can compete on an even basis.
The Awards ceremony and final dinner were supposed to begin at 7pm.
However, the sabre competition was only completed at 8pm and by the time the competitiors had showered and arrived at the venue, it was 9pm.
At the dinner, Ferdinand van Zyl (RAU) was named Man at Arms, Amm was named Lady at Arms and Wits was named Champions.
This is a significant development.
It is the first time since 1973 that Wits has won these championships.
It also marks the return of the title to Gauteng.
After the University of Pretoria's long period of dominance throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the championships were won by RAU and then by a succession of universities from the Western Cape and the title has now returned to its rightful home in Gauteng.
Congratulations must be extended to Wits for hosting a very good championships, the SASSU organising committee and to all the fencers who took part, especially UND, who marked their return to SASSU (after too long an absence) with some very good performances, especially in foil.
We are looking forward to an even better showing in Durban in July 2001.
