Contributed by Ryan Quek

Seoul, Monday, July 11, 2011 — Singapore’s national women’s foil fencers could not replicate their early form in the team events on day 4 of the Asian Fencing Championships 2011 when they lost to arch-rivals Hong Kong in the quarter-finals. In the 5th and 6th placing match, they lost narrowly to Vietnam.

In a repeat of last year’s quarter-final match at the Asian Games, Singapore started slowly and could not overcome the tenacity of the Hong Kong team. Despite the best efforts of the team, comprising Cheryl Wong, Wang Wenying, Joan Ang and Ruth Ng, the girls were not able to produce their best today and eventually lost 37-30.

Cheryl, who finished 10th in the individual event, was disappointed but still managed to draw some positives from the match.

“We did not start as strongly as we usually would and were under pressure early in the match. I think all of us gave our best but unfortunately Hong Kong was just better on the day,” said Cheryl.

Team manager David Chan said: “The team is understandably disappointed as they have set themselves the goal of reaching the semi-finals. The good thing is that the girls will have some time to review their performances before we head to SEA Games later this year.”

The women’s foil team followed up the loss to Hong Kong by beating Australia 45-23 easily, in the first classification match before eventually losing a very close match 26-27 against Vietnam, in the 5th and 6th placing match.

It was not a good day for the Singapore national men’s sabre team as well as they were not able to post a win. The team lost to Malaysia 21-45 and also 29-45 to Indonesia. The team eventually exited the competition with another 24-45 defeat to Chinese Taipei.

In the previous day’s results, 26-year-old men’s epeeist Lim Weiwen lost a tight encounter with China’s Yin Lianchi 14-15 in the round of 32 to end his good run in the competition.

Women’s Sabreur Nona Lim finished in a respectable 15th place after losing to eventual silver-medallist Lee Ra Jin of South Korea in the Round of 16.

Fencing Singapore sent a total of 22 athletes to this year’s annual competition which is hosting a total of close to 300 athletes from 8th July to 13th July.

More information about the sport can be found at http://fencingsingapore.org.sg