Women’s epee team (L to R): Celine Chong, Donna Lim, Elizabeth Lim, Rania Rahardja. (Photo courtesy of Fencing Singapore)
Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, March 11, 2013 – The final day of the 2013 Asian Junior and Cadet Championships saw the Singapore’s women epee team snatch a historic team silver medal for the Republic in the junior category.
The quartet of Rania Rahardja, Celine Chong, Elizabeth Lim and Donna Lim started the day by defeating the Iranians 45–37 in the round of 16. They then stunned the top-seeded Kazakhstan team in the quarter-finals with the same scoreline to march into the semi-finals to face Korea.
Despite trailing the Asian powerhouse after the first two bouts, the Singapore girls refocused and served up a dominant performance to overcome the Koreans 40–33 in the end. In the final, Singapore trailed the Australians for most part of the bout and were unable to mount their customary comeback late in the game, eventually losing 35–45 to take home the silver.
Singapore competed in all six events at the Championships – men’s and women’s foil, epee and sabre. Cadet events are for fencers 17 years old and below while junior events are for those 20 years and below. This year’s championships featured more than 600 fencers from Asian countries, including Hong Kong, Thailand, Khazakstan, China, Japan and Korea.
“The girls did really well today and showed tremendous grit and determination in the tough bouts against all the top Asian teams,” said Gabor Salamon, the technical director and interim national epee coach.
“I am extremely pleased with their efforts and the silver medal we won today wraps up a very successful campaign for the entire contingent at the championships. There is still a lot of work to be done but this win will give us a lot of confidence and many positives to build on for future championships,” added coach Salamon.
In the women’s foil junior team event held on Sunday, March 10, our Singapore girls — Liane Wong, Thalia Lee, Nicole Wong and Lau Ysien — also added to Singapore’s medal tally by winning a bronze medal. The women foilists thrashed Malaysia 45–9 in the round of 16 and then defeated Kazakhstan 45–39 in the quarter-finals. The team lost to a very strong Japan 23–45 to finish with the bronze medal.
Women’s epee fencer, Rania Rahardja, who was the anchor fencer, was thrilled with the team’s performance.
Rania said: “Even though it was disappointing that we did not get the gold medal, we were extremely happy that we were able to reach the finals and beat tournament favourites Kazakhstan along the way.”
When asked about how this silver medal feels in comparison to her double, gold-medal haul two months ago in the South East Asian Championships, Rania commented: “All our opponents are of the highest level in Asia and this is the first time that Singapore managed a silver medal in the Asian Junior team level so this result definitely feels more special!”
After nine days of competition, Singapore ended with a final medal tally of one silver and four bronzes.
Joshua Lim started the ball rolling by winning a bronze at the men’s foil cadet category and the men doubled the bronze medal count in the foil cadet team event.
The women’s sabre cadet team and women’s foil junior team notched up the other two bronze medals. This is Singapore’s largest medal haul at the Asian level.
Nicholas Fang, the president of Fencing Singapore, said: “These championships are a strong validation of the hard work and dedication of our young team of fencers. The women’s Epee team result shows that all three weapon groups – Foil, Epee and Sabre – are all progressing well, which is important for (a) balanced and sustainable growth of the sport.
“For our junior and cadet fencers to deliver at the Asian level already bodes well for our results at the senior level in terms of achieving our goal of medalling at the Asian Games and becoming competitive at the Olympic level.”
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