Macleans College Fencing Teams Success
Posted on October 20, 2017
The past few months have been busy for the Macleans College Secondary Schools Fencing teams.
In August the Fencing North Secondary Schools Teams Competition was held. Macleans College Sabre fencers dominated the teams’ competition coming 1st and 3rd. Macleans A fencers continued their form from the individual competition and comfortably won the finals. It was Macleans B who caused much more excitement after entering the final round behind and seeing off 6 match points, Rayman Tang (Rutherford House) lead the team to a nail biting 45-44 victory to claim the bronze medal.
Inspired by those results the foil teams produced the College’s best ever set of results with three teams in the top eight and Macleans A taking the bronze medal.
In September the finals of the secondary school season were held in Wellington. Over 40 schools were represented at the Nationals and with a gruelling schedule over three days, this was not only a test of skill but also of endurance.
The Friday afternoon started with the individual sabre competition. Michael Purcell (Kupe) was top placed fencer for the College finishing 2nd overall. Follow Sabreurs Kevin Hou (Upham) and Nelson Lee (Snell) were disappointed with their 8th and 11th placings.
On Saturday the individual foil competition was held and again Michael was the College’s top placed fencer, coming 11th.
In the afternoon it was time for the Sabre Team Competition. Michael, Kevin and Nelson had dominated the Fencing North Individual and Team Sabre competition so there were high expectations for the team at the Nationals. Kevin and Nelson put aside the individuals results and joined with Michael and Alex McGuire-Barnes (Te Kanawa) to take first place, thus claiming Macleans College’s first ever National Secondary Schools gold medal.
Sunday brought the competition to a close with the foil teams competition. Most of the foilists were disappointed with their individual results so had a point to prove. The Macleans A team delivered. They were narrowly defeated by the eventual competition winners in the semi-finals but rebounded to take out a close fought bronze medal match. This was another first for the school as it had never won medals before in a National Secondary Schools Foil competition.
Although the competition was over, it was not the end of the awards. The entire team was awarded the Sportsmanship and Fair Play award for the competition after the international referee witnessed a genuine and spontaneous show of respect by the entire team towards a fellow competitor.
