Veterans put in brave showing

10:29am Thursday 13th March 2008

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Stourbridge Fencing Club members enjoyed mixed fortunes at the National Veterans Fencing Championships held in Gloucester last weekend.

On Friday afternoon Steve Potter, Peter Baron and Phil Palmer were all involved in the men's sabre event.

It was Palmer's first veteran's event and he had a successful first round with a slightly less positive outcome from the second. He missed out on the semi-final but was pleased to finish around half way up the tough field of nearly 40 competitors.

Both Potter and Baron did make the semi-final.

Baron's run ended there with a reasonable 11th place just missing out on third place in the over 60s age group by losing once again to Tony Bardell.

Potter on the other hand progressed to the final, where after a four-way barrage for first place he finished fourth but was only second in the 40-49 age group this time.

On Saturday Baron made a rare outing with a foil but was unable to make much impact on the regular foilists. Despite a couple of good victories and near misses he finished in 38th place.

On Sunday it was the turn of the epéists and member John Morris.

Morris took some good scalps but, in a very tough field - many of the competitors are still in the top 100 in the national rankings of senior fencers - he had to settle for 40th out of the 60 competitors.

The club's only woman entrant Janet Baron, withdrew after failing to recover from injury.