Singapore, Wednesday February 23, 2011 — The 2011 Cadet World Cup (CWC) event will see close to 200 of the top young fencers from around the region doing battle here in the Republic over four days of heated competition. The CWC is into its second year, and will be held at Republic Polytechnic from Feb 24-27.

The competition was created last year as a precursor to the Youth Olympic Games and saw 111 participants. The CWC 2011 will see 185 talented fencers aged 17-and-under from Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, and hosts Singapore, competing in foil, epee and sabre as individuals and also teams.

The event has attracted some of the best young fencers from Singapore, including the country’s Youth Olympic representatives Liane Wong and Justin Ong, who will be flying the flag in the women’s and men’s foil events respectively. Another top local prospect is the defending champion in the men’s sabre event, Clive Leu, who is back to take on all challengers to his title.

The strong turnout for this year’s event bodes well for the development of young fencers in Singapore and the region. Fencing Singapore general manager Ryan Quek said that the year had started strongly for young Singapore athletes at last weekend’s national cadet and junior trials.

“We had over 400 athletes competing at the trials, which was almost double the number in 2010. We are aiming to build on the success of last year’s Youth Olympics, as well as the strong performances at the Commonwealth Championships and Asian Games, as we move towards our goal of winning a medal at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro,” said Quek. “We have a robust athlete development pipeline in place and events like the Cadet World Cup create great opportunities for our youngsters to test themselves against the best in the region, a crucial factor as we build towards our Olympic goal.”

Fencing Singapore continues to receive strong support from the sporting authorities and sponsors, which plays an important part in the long-term aspirations of the sport in Singapore. Fencing Singapore president Nicholas Fang was happy with the recent increase in funding from the Singapore Sports Council, which saw the sport of fencing enter the “million-dollar club” of Singapore sports for the first time.

“We saw a more than 60 per cent increase in our annual budget from SSC and are now receiving more than $1 million, a record high for us,” he said. “The bulk of the funding will go to ensuring that we have the right coaching expertise and talent in place to direct us on our Olympic journey, and also to continue enhancing our youth development programmes. We are also very grateful to have received kind support from OCBC Bank which enables us to continue putting on quality events that are able to attract top competitors from all over the region.”