Canadian Fencing Federation – The Canadian Women’s Foil team was in action in St-Maur, France this past weekend at the FIE World Cup, following a week of training in Paris.

The team of Alanna Goldie (Calgary, AB), Eleanor Harvey (Hamilton, ON), Kelleigh Ryan (Ottawa, ON) and Shannon Comerford (Saskatoon, SK) finished in 7^th place.

Canada defeated Poland 45-39 to advance to the quarter-finals where they faced Italy, a tough opponent who went on to take gold in the competition. Canada lost to Italy by a score of 45-31. 

The loss put Canada in the 5^th to 8^th ranking matches, and Canada’s first bout was against Team France.  Canada defeated France in Cancun last month to advance to the semi-finals but fell short this time, losing 37-31.  Canada finished off the tournament on a high note by defeating Korea 45-37 to take 7^th place overall.  It was Canada’s first ever win against Korea, who had the event’s individual gold medalist and a top 8 finisher on their team. Canada is currently ranked 6^th in the World in Team Women’s Foil, one spot ahead of Korea.

Canada had three Canadians advance to the top 64 in Individual competition. Eleanor Harvey and Alanna Goldie both lost close 64 bouts to finish 35^th and 60^th overall.  Two of Canada’s juniors were the highlight of the individual competition.  Naomi Moindrot-Zilliox (Saint-Lambert, QC) made the top 64’s losing to the number two world ranked athlete from Russia. Cadet (U17) aged athlete Ying Cao (Toronto, ON) advanced after poules and lost a close bout in the final direct elimination round to finish 93^rd overall.

In other news, Canada’s Cadet (U17) sabre fencers competed the weekend before in the London European Fencing Circuit (EFC), a high performance cadet selection event for Canada. Canada’s men’s sabre teams excelled in the team competition, finishing 3^rd and 8^th respectively out of 16 teams.  Team Canada 1 consisting of Vincent Jean (MEC, QC), Alex Sun (DYN, BC), Andrew Wei (BRE, QC) and Ryan Xu (AXF, ON) defeated Belgium 45-43 for the Bronze medal, while Canada 2 defeated USA 1 to make the top 8. In individual competition, Andrew Wei (BRE, QC) and Nicholas Dinu (BSC, ON) finished 7^th and 8^th overall out of 100 fencers. Canada’s women’s sabre team (Canada 2) finished in 8^th place in the team competition.