Fencers’ SEA Games campaign on track

SINGAPORE — National foil coach Simon Senft is targeting a clean sweep of all four gold medals available in the men’s and women’s foil events at next year’s SEA Games on home soil.

Backed by what he described as a stellar performance by the foilists at the ongoing Commonwealth Fencing Championships in Scotland (Nov 10 to 15), Senft is confident that the Republic can excel in both the individual and team events.

Yesterday in Largs, the men’s foilists bagged a silver and bronze in the individual event via Zhang Zhenggang and Wu Jie, respectively, at the sportscotland National Centre.

This follows Wang Wenying’s gold in the women’s individual foil on Wednesday — Singapore’s first in the Championships’ 40-year history — with team-mate Cheryl Wong taking the bronze.

Singapore was assured of two medals in the men’s individual event when Zhang and Wu set up a semi-final meeting, which Zhang took 15-10. He eventually lost the gold medal match 15-2 to Scotland’s Jamie Fitzgerald, who is a junior World Cup winner.

“The men’s team really performed above my expectations today,” said Senft, who joined Fencing Singapore in 2012.

“The level of competition is very high, so I am really pleasantly surprised. We also have Singaporean Kevin Chan in top eight and we are definitely the men’s No 1 ranked team going into men’s draw for the team event tomorrow.”

The top eight for the men’s individual foil included British 2012 Olympian Husayn Rosowsky and his compatriot Keith Cook, who is a five-time Commonwealth medallist who also represented Great Britain in five World Championships and European Championships.

“After the Asian Games, I took the boys on a two-week training camp in the United States,” said German Senft, who competed in the team foil event at the 2004 Olympics. “We also went for a four-day camp in Germany just a few days before this Commonwealth Championships. I think these really did them a lot of good.

“It is eight more months to the SEA Games and of course, I am targeting gold medals. But in fencing, it is hard to say, because it is just that one day when you have to be mentally prepared to take your opponent down with good tactical play.”

After three days of competition, Singapore has amassed one gold, two silver and two bronze medals in Largs. At the previous championships in 2010, the Republic took home two silver and two bronze medals.