Fencing Canada – Weekend Wrap-up, Jan. 23, 2017:

Junior World Cup Silver Medal for Canada’s Men’s Sabre Team

It was a busy weekend in Junior and Senior World Cup action with Canadian junior men’s sabre, senior men’s foil and senior women’s epee athletes in competition.

The highlight of the weekend was Canada’s silver medal in Junior Men’s Sabre at the Phoenix, USA Junior World Cup!  The team of Francois Cauchon (Montreal, QC), Angelo Chiara (Montreal, QC), Falan Kennedy (Ardrossan, AB) and Hunter Moricz (North Vancouver, BC) defeated Mexico 45-35 to advance to the semi-finals where they faced Team Germany.  It was a close bout with Canada coming out on top with a 45-43 win to advance to the gold medal final.  Canada lost its first bout of the day to a very strong Team Italy who took gold with a 45-25 win. Canada took home the silver medal while Team USA lost to Germany for the bronze medal by a score of 45-33.

Three of Canada’s men’s sabre athletes finished in the top 32 in individual competition.  Falan Kennedy was 26^th, Angelo Chiara 28^th and Francois Cauchon was 29^th overall.

The other highlight of the weekend was in World Cup senior men’s Foil in Paris.  Rio Olympian Maximilien Van Haaster (Montreal, QC) continues to climb the rankings with his 22^nd place finish in a competition that had 210 fencers.  Van Haaster went a perfect 6 wins and 0 losses in poules to advance straight to the 64’s.  He defeated Russian Kirill Borodachev 15-7 to advance the next round.  In the 32’s, Van Haaster lost a heartbreaker 15-14 to Japan’s Toshiya Saito who went on to make it to the quarter-finals.  Van Haaster finished in 22^nd place overall.

Canada’s young men’s foil team competed in senior team competition on Sunday and finished in 15^th spot while Canada’s women’s Epee team competed in a World Cup in Barcelona and finished in 16^th place.

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