The 15 member Canadian team to the Commonwealth Veterans Fencing Championships won six medals, the competition was well organized at an outstanding venue (Fort Regent) on the beautiful island of Jersey.

Our women's epee team had an absolute nail biter bout for bronze, Veronika Ho fencing epee for the first time was recruited to complete the team of Liz Santo and Lorraine Hoyne. With the score 44-44 anchor Lorraine kept her cool and concentration to score the final touch.

Marvin Fine fencing very well for Gold in the 70+ saber, repeated his performance of two years ago in Toronto, by winning over Allan Ault of England.

Daniel Boismenu fell ill a week before the competition and unfortunately had to cancel his trip, this left Canada B epee team only with Dan Tatu and Howard Simmons, Gaby Weisz fenced to complete the team. By the luck of the draw the first bout of our B team was with Canada A of Mark Ballard, David Arthurs and Chris Seguin, this was a great deal of fun. Our B team was gracious in defeat and Canada A went on to win Silver.

Zbignew Pietruzinski suffered a knee injury in the third bout of first pool sabre and was forced to withdraw, as did George Lavorato with a shoulder injury in foil. Mark Ballard was injured in the second DE saber competition and had to withdraw from the saber team. Gaby Weisz jumped in as alternate. Our saber team of Marvin Fine, Gordon Jones and Vince Fernandez eliminated Jersey in the first bout and narrowly lost to Guernsey in the Bronze medal bout, finishing fourth in a seven team field. Not having further injuries our saberers were saved of Gaby having to fence.

The individual epee final was a cliffhanger between our David Arthurs and England's Ralph Johnson (World and European champion), after David having a slight lead he went neck and neck to 9-9, Ralph had the final touch.

Great sportsmanship and camaraderie was evident within our team as well as with our fellow fencers, representing eleven Commonwealth countries. Our Team Dinner was very successful as usual. GW

Complete Results

• Men's Foil
  • Mark Ballad - 9
  • David Arthurs - 13
  • Gaby Weisz - 21
  • Eli Newman - 24
  • George Lavorato - 28
     
• Women's Foil
  • Veronika Ho - 7
     
• Men's Epee
  • David Arthurs 50+ - GOLD
  • David Arthurs - SILVER
  • Mark Ballard - 7
  • Chris Seguin - 14
  • Dan Tatu - 20
  • Howard Simmons - 30
     
• Women's Epee
  • Lorraine Hoyne - BRONZE
  • Liz Santo - 24
     
• Men's Sabre
  • Marvin Fine 70+ - GOLD
  • Vincent Fernandez - 5
  • Marvin Fine - 11
  • Gordon Jones - 15
  • Mark Ballard - 23
  • Zbignew Pietruzinski - 30
     
• ME Team
  • David Arthurs, Chris Seguin, Mark Ballard - SILVER
     
• WE Team
  • Lorraine Hoyne, Liz Santo, Veronika Ho - BRONZE