By Ryan Quek/Fencing Singapore

Jersey, United Kingdom, February 16, 2012 — Singapore’s Willie Khoo secured a bronze medal in the men’s epee individual event on the third day of the Commonwealth Junior Fencing Championships.

The 20-year-old overcame the second seeded Alex Farmer of England in a nail-biting quarter-final by a score of 13-12 to reach the semi-finals where he lost to eventual winner Mathew Anderson of Canada by a score of 15-12.

Finishing on the podium from a field of 40 competitors from countries such as Great Britain, New Zealand, Canada, and India left Willie visibly thrilled.

He said: “I have been training very hard to prepare for this competition and to have achieved this result at the Commonwealths is a breakthrough for me and for the team. I hope I can bring this good form into the World Juniors coming up in less than two months time.”

Willie, currently a full time national serviceman, had to take his own annual leave to attend the championships. He said: “The medal certainly makes up for the little sacrifice that I made!”

Fencing Singapore’s Technical Director, Dr Gabor Salamon, said this result bodes well for the future of Singapore fencing. “We have had many encouraging results from the rest of the team and this clearly shows we are on the right track with our youth development. This bronze medal is the result of the hard work the kids have put in the past year. The World Juniors in March and the Asian Fencing Championships is a key test for us so this is definitely a big step forward for us.”

In other results, Cheryl Lim and Liane Wong narrowly missed qualifying for the semi-finals in the women’s individual Epee and Foil events respectively.

Fencing Singapore president Nicholas Fang said: “This is a fantastic result for Willie. He has been juggling his NS commitments with training and competition and it has not been easy for him. He is a bright spark for the future and definitely a part of our athlete development plans for 2016 Olympics and beyond. I am thrilled to see the progress he has made under the guidance of our high performance team, coaches, and our new technical director and I am sure this is just the beginning of great things to come from this talented youngster.”

Fencing Singapore is currently being represented in all six events at the Commonwealth Junior Championships — men’s and women’s foil, epee and sabre. The championships are currently taking place from February 13-17. The Commonwealth Junior Fencing Championships are held every three years with the last championships held in Malaysia in 2009. The inaugural championships were held in Chennai, India in 2006.

For more details and full results, please refer to the official website of the Championships at www.cjfc2012.com.