Silver and bronze medals secured at National Secondary School Fencing Championships
Posted on August 29, 2023
This year’s National Secondary School Fencing Championships took place in Wellington from 26 – 27 August. This is the premiere schools’ competition to which everyone in the fencing fraternity aspires.
Ten Macleans College fencers (five sabreurs and five foilists) flew down to the championships, accompanied by Mr Fourie, Ms Connolly and Mr Anson Lin. A big thank you to Mr Lin who was responsible for a lot of the organisation and background details.
The weekend started with three sabre masks failing standardised tests, and the Composite Women’s team, of which Gisele Lau (Te Kanawa House) was meant to be a member, disintegrating due to one fencer being unable to compete. After managing these unexpected situations, fencing started the next day.
The sabreurs had a tougher time than expected. The Men’s Sabreur team of Ken Zhong (Hillary), Davin Chan (Batten), Allan Zhao (Kupe) and Kyan Mar (Hillary) earned bronze medals. Special mention must be made of Allan Zhao, who scored 15 points off a single competitor, thus substantially narrowing the losing margin (43-45) in the semi-finals. The highest Macleans College Individual Sabreur was Ken Zhong, who was ranked sixth out of 15 competitors.
Unfortunately, foilist Larry Lin (Batten) was unable to fence due to illness. In the Men’s Individual Foil event, 37 competitors were registered. Three Macleans College foilists; Eddy Zheng (Snell), Matt Wang (Mansfield) and Craig Chong (Upham) laudably finished in the top eight. After defeating both the number two and three seed, Eddy Zheng then faced the number one seed in the finals, and bravely went down 13-15, earning himself a well-deserved silver medal.
The Men’s Foil team of Eddy Zheng, Craig Chong, Matt Wang and Maxwell Chen (Upham) brought the very long day to a thrilling close. Theirs was an hour-long, epic battle in the finals. Several points needed to be decided by electronic referees. They lost 42-45 against worthy opponents, and proudly brought home silver medals.
The Macleans College fencers haven proven themselves to be worthy competitors with a strong drive for excellence, and yet when losing, are gracious to the victors. They are impeccably mannered and responsible, a true credit to, and regal ambassadors for, Macleans College.
