London 2012 blog

On Saturday evening I enjoyed Gala Finals from the first day of competition in the Camden International Cadet Sabre Competition.

In the Fencing world 'Cadet' means under-17 and there is currently no international competition circuit for top-flight fencers in this age group. This means that even a new competition like the Camden International draws significant interest from the top fencing nations and 129 young people (male and female) came from nine different nations to compete at the William Ellis and Acland Burghley schools in Tufnell Park.

Fencing has been an Olympic sport since the inception of the modern Games in 1896 and is competed across three weapons - the foil, epee and sabre: the Camden International focussed solely on the sabre. It was organised by the Camden Fencing Club, a communty programme sponsored by the Camden Sports Council, and supported by British Fencing and the London Borough of Camden as part of their own preparations for and celebration of the London Games in 2012.

A thrilling Men's Individual final saw home interest James Honeybone competing against Pascal Merle of Germany in a match refereed by Matthieu Gourdain, himself a double Olympic silver medallist for France.

It was a nice touch that in each bout the international referees were assisted by young Londoners responsible for managing the scoring equipment and themselves national age-group champions drawn from the Camden Fencing Club.

The photo shows Pascal Merle (airborne) about to score the winning hit on James Honeybone (lunging) after a final full of movement, emotion and showmanship.

Who knows, perhaps we'll see Pascal or James on the Fencing piste during the 2012 Games.