The defending boys' and girls' champions continued their dominance, but neither could sweep all three events of foil, epee and sabre
Diocesan Boys School took the epee event against La Salle College.Diocesan Boys’ School and Diocesan Girls’ School were crowned the overall champions at this year’s Inter-school Fencing Competition on Sunday.
Young fencers from more than 60 secondary schools in the Hong Kong Island and Kowloon district gathered at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park Sports Centre on Sunday to fight it out at the foil, epee and sabre team events.
In the overall girls’ category, DGS fencers successfully defended their championship title last year by winning the foil and sabre events, and taking third place at epee. They defeated long-time rivals Heep Yunn School in the gold medal matches at the foil and sabre events, but they were both closely fought matches.
The entire DGS sabre team burst into tears as team captain Kwok Yan-kei landed the last touch to end the event finals with a score of 45:42. The 15-year-old told Young Post that the team had been under tremendous pressure before the competition.
“We had been very stressed because we wanted to make up for last year’s gold medal loss. Even when the score was close, I had to calm myself down because I knew I would lose more points if I was nervous.”
In an equally thrilling final match, Fan Linna, the DGS foil team captain, defeated Sophia Wu of Heep Yunn School 10:6 in the last bout. The match ended with a final team score of 41:37 for DGS as the 17-year-old anchored the team to win gold in girls’ foil event.
Meanwhile in the boys’ overall category, 2017 champions DBS were equally successful in maintaining their dominance as they came in first place at epee and sabre. However, the school’s bid to achieve a ‘Grand Slam’ by winning all three events was shattered by La Salle College’s foil team, led by Youth Olympics fencer Paco Chan Pak-hei. Paco and the LSC foil team took the event with a final score of 45:32.