O.P.S. News

Joshua Myers wins his first senior county championships. Great result.

Well done to all club fencers attending this event. Medals were won by Ellie Taylor (Bronze, U11 Girls), Amelia McCormack (Silver U15 Girls) and Theo Edwards (Bronze U15 Boys). In the Under 11 Girls Rachael Lever secured a 7th place with Maisie McCormack 12th in a very strong field. 

Fencers from the club again fenced well to bring home a good haul of medals from the event. The domination of the under 12 girls saw Ellie Taylor winning Gold, with Maisie McCormack Silver and Rachael Lever Bronze. In the Under 14 Girls Amelia McCormack matched her sister in winning Silver, in the under 14 boys Marcus Arnold came 5th and in the Under 17 Boys Epee Joshua Myers and Theo Edwards took a bronze each. Theo had earlier in the day got a bonus by winning the Foil event as well. Well done to you all.

Under 11 Girls medallists for OPS.

Sophie Rouwenhurst, after a less than successful first two rounds which saw her seeded 7th, turned on the style in the DEs and knocked out Niamh Noble (Frisby Fencers), followed by 2nd Seed Alisha Arden (Knightsbridge) and then team-mate Ellie Taylor to reach the final of the event. After a great attempt, she succumbed to the much more experienced Ellie Parmar (R&REC, one of Chris’s school fencers from Surrey) in the final. Great results for Sophie 2nd and Ellie Taylor 3rd as well as Rachael Lever, who though finishing in 7th, had a great first 2 rounds and went out in the quarter finals following some interesting refereeing decisions. 

I will update other club fencers results when they become available as nothing has been published yet.

Great result for Joshua Myers coming 12th at the Under 17 British squad selection event. After a great first two rounds where Theo Edwards was ranked 19th, he lost to Jamie Stuart (who Chris Howser has coached for many years) to be the highest ranked fencer eliminated in the last 64 so placing 33rd out of a field of 56.

Chris Howser followed up his last 8 at the British Championships a few weeks ago, with a Bronze medal at what is one of the top 3 opens on the British calander. Following a 5-1 win to loss ratio in round , Chris secured 4th seed from those in the first round to give him a bye to the round of 64. Here he faced Matt Edger and following a really tough match survived to win 15-14. Next was Brixton’s Paul Sanchez-Lethem, ranked 16th in the GB rankings who Chris managed to beat 15-12, followed by Anthony Avis – 15-8. This took Chris to the quarter finals and a match against James Harris (GB ranked 8th) and following a difficult match he found himself 14-12 down with little time remaining in the match. With 3 close hits Chris managed to win the match to reach the semi-final against Andrea Bombrini (Milan-Italy). This was another close match with Chris taking a lead and then Andrea catching up and leading by a hit with just a few seconds left on the clock after almost 9 minutes of fencing complete. A quick hit saw the scores leveled and the fight extended into any additional minute of ‘sudden death’ extra time. After a close exchange Chris misses a flick hit to Andrea’s shoulder and the Italian on the match to reach the final and Chris’s day was over. Andrea ended up winning Silver losing to British Champion, Dudley Tredger, 15-14 in the final to complete a day of really close matches.

This result will give Chris another boost to his ranking, which the endn of October update will be published shortly, and will probably mean a return to the top 16 of the British rankings after several years out of serious competitive fencing and the possibility of international selection for the world cup circuit.. 

Really encouraging results for our youngsters, however lots of 1 hit defeats to so how small the margins are between success and getting knocked out in fencing. The star performance of the event went to Maisie McCormack with a brilliant 2nd place out of a field of 21 in the Under 11 girls. Following a solid first round she went into the knock-out rounds in 6th seed and following wins over Lulu Willett (Bexley) 10-8, Megan Haine ( CLFS) 10-1, Henriette Haladin (Salle Haladin) 10-8, she was edged out 10-9 in the final, however this was Maisie’s best ever result and is very encouraging for the future. In the U11 Girls Rachael Level and EllieTaylor both had great 1st rounds, being seeded 3rd and 9th respectively, however after a first DE bye, lost 10-9 in the last 16, placing 9th and 10th.

One hit losses were repeated through the event for club fencers, with Tabby Pattison losing out 15-14 in the Under 13 Girls after a great 4th seed after the first round, finishing in 9th and a 15-14 loss for Marcus Arnold in the Under 13 boys to finish 14th and Inaky Turner losing 10-9 to eventual bronze medallist Alaxander Truuvert. Solid results were also recorded by Theo Edwards, 13th in the Under 16 Boys, Matthew Lever 34th (after another 15-14 loss) and Amelia McCormack 27th in the Under 16 Girls. The event was really tough for Amelia and Matthew as they have only fenced for about a year, wheras most of their opponents have many years of competition experience, so their improvement from past events was noticable. Well done to everyone for representing the club so well. 

Solid result for Joshua Myers in one of the tough British Selection Circuit Under 20 events, taking 22nd out of a field of 70 fencers. With 3 more years in this age-group there is much still to come from Joshua.

From an initial seeding at the start of the event of 17th out of 19 teams taking part, the club’s mens team consisting of Chris Howser, Fraser Stephen-Smith and Oli Price started off well with a 45-32 victory over Shetland FC followed by a 45-32 win over a Haverstock ‘B’ team which included former British Champion, Alistair Gerrard and was the team which started the event as 4th seeds. 

After these premiminary match wins the OPS team was seeded 4th and by luck again drew Haverstock ‘B’ (now 13th seeds) again in the first round (Last 16) of the knock out round. Following a 5-0 inital bout to take the match lead, the match was a formality with Haverstock B never getting close to catching back that lead and OPS eventually winning 45-33. In the Last 8 the club faced Malvern College ‘B’ and again a 5-0 1st bout win set up a lead for OPS that the Malvern team were never able to threaten, the match ended in a 45-35 scoreline in favour of OPS and guarenteed the club its first ever British Club Team Championship Medal. 

In the semi final OPS came up against a Haverstock A team who were 1st seeds and consisted of the main team fencers ranked 2nd, 4th and 5th in the individual british rankings who all train several times a week and all current GB international fencers. This was a big ask for the OPS team consisting of 3 fencers who, due to family commitments, train a tiny fraction of that amount and it showed with Haverstock winning the match 45- 28. 

With Haverstock A going on to win the title 45-21 in the final against Sheffield University, the OPS team result of 3rd and only losing to the eventual winners was a real surprise for some. However the experience of the team showed when it counted in the earlier rounds and for a club which did not exist 14 months ago to be winning medals at National Senior level is a sign of where the club is aiming to go longer term.

Starting from 97th on the British Womens Epee Ranking Kate Howser has given her ranking a huge lift by placing 26th at the event and should rise about 40 places in the rankings from this result. A really solid result since Kate is just learning the weapon after recently moving from doing Foil. Chris Howser continued his strong start to the season with 6th place in the mens Epee which should jump him well into the top 20 of the British Rankings from his 28th starting position.