Touché: Fencers win Premiership(s)

The mantle of success is never an easy thing to bear, especially so in sport. Success breeds expectation, which translates into pressure – exactly the sort of thing you don’t want when you’re trying to reproduce past exploits.

On the weekend of the 20th of January, the Imperial men’s and women’s team took all this in their stride while attempting to defend their Southern Premiership crowns, and come top of the league for the second year running.

The women were on a string of victories, as yet unbeaten this season. The first premiership tournament weekend, which saw all the home matches of the season played in one go, ended with IC ladies on top and raring for more.For captain Charlotte Levin and her team, it should have been plain sailing – and for the most part, it was. Beginning the weekend by fencing foil and sabre on the saturday, the girls breezed through; thoroughly destroying Queen Mary and winning convincingly against Oxford, Cambridge and UCL. The day ended with the girls having assured victory in one match (before having fenced the epee) and needing an easily-achievable amount of points to win the others. Things were looking up, and it all almost seemed too easy.

The men’s team, however, was having a rather more trying time of it. Their first match against Cambridge got off to a good start, with a (somewhat expected) win in the sabre, putting the rest of the team at ease. The foil continued in this vein, beating their opponents by more than ten hits (where they had lost on the previous occasion). It fell to the epeeists to finalise the victory, which they did in style. Final score: 120-108. A first win soothed the men’s nerves, which was necessary for the match to come: a showdown with the league leaders Oxford. Having drawn, and lost on weapons, to the Dark Blues at the previous premiership weekend, the guys had a bone to pick with the Oxford team. Unfortunately, the schedule meant that Imperial had a long break between matches, and this had them feeling quite lethargic when the time came to take up arms again.

The match got underway with sabre, as before, and the sabreurs did not disappoint, pulling off a resoundingg victory to leave Imperial twenty-nine points clear. The foil was more of an uphill struggle, with both good and bad performances from the team. In the end, they dropped five hits overall, which left the epeeists twenty-four hits up, and needing to score twenty-one to put the match away. By this time, all the other teams had finished fencing (including the girls) and the entire Imperial contingent had turned out to provide support – much needed up against a vocal Oxford contingent. The epeeists made excruciatingly slow progress, but the hits built up, bit by bit. Hollywood scriptwriters could not have imagined the scene better, as the anchor Harry Gulliver came up for his final fight needing a single hit to win the match overall. After conceding a couple of hits, while everyone else was chewing their nails off, Harry came through with a double hit, and the crowd raised the roof in Ethos. As the Oxford anchor slumped his shoulders in defeat, Imperial rejoiced –they just had to win the next day’s matches to win the league. Final score against Oxford: 100-97.

The next day saw the girls fence their epee matches, and the guys take on Bristol and ULU. Full of confidence from the day before, the women’s team proceeded to seal their victory against Queen Mary with an emphatic 135-24 final score. Victories against Oxford (135-117) and UCL (135-89) followed. The only off note of the evening was the epee loss to Cambridge – although the girls still won it overall, 120-103.

This almost-too-easy string of wins meant that, once again, the IC Women’s 1st team were crowned Premiership champions, with eight wins out of eight.

Could the men emulate them, and retain their crown too? The match against Bristol was to be key. Once again, the sabreurs began with panache, winning easily and putting the team ahead. The foilists then won their match, not putting a foot wrong to leave epee only needing nine hits to win. They achieved this comfortably, and while they did not win their match, the overall score ended up as 125-99 to Imperial. With only ULU, the weakest team in the league, to go, the men were confident they could seal their league win. ULU didn’t pose a threat at all, and all three weapons posted comfortable victories as Imperial ran away with it. Final score: 135-71.

The Premiership was in the bag. Both teams saw fit to go for a celebratory Wagamama dinner, although the tiredness was palpable in some!

The Imperial fencing first teams are now attempting to defend their championship titles by winning this year’s BUCS knockout competition and confirming their status as the best in the country. The men are up against Durham in the quarter-finals on the 22nd, and the women fence Bristol on the same date. Both matches are in Ethos, so ocome down and support!