This year’s Scottish Open took place at Inverclyde National Sports Training Centre in Largs. It was a great pleasure to chat with so many familiar faces from across the fencing generations and welcome them to our 6 weapon home event. The main hall at Inverclyde has recently undergone lighting improvements which enhanced everyone’s experience.
The fencing was very exciting to watch with many youngsters surprising their older opponents. The increasing complexity of fencing rules with its 3 P’s in foil and epee had lots of people chatting. Each day I witnessed many hard fought bouts with only the slightest margins in timing defining the win. Everyone was enjoying themselves. The full results are here on Fencing Time Live.
This year it was encouraging to see an increase in participation in our women’s events and we will actively encourage this trend going forward.
Viv Mills was also in attendance at the event chatting with competitors and coaches about upcoming opportunities to develop parafencing within clubs and competitions as part of our commitment to developing fencing as an inclusive sport.
I would like to thank all the competitors that came along to Largs, the referees who supported the event and especially the volunteers that helped to set up and manage DT. In order to build and improve upon our collective experience of our Scottish Open and make it an outstanding event that people will look forward to coming to in the future I would like to encourage anyone interested in becoming a referee/para-referee, learning about DT, armoury, competition floor management for able bodied/parafencing and general volunteering to contact me at president@scottish-fencing.com and I will seek to put you in touch with others who can help to develop your skills and knowledge.
We will shortly be sending out a feedback questionnaire looking for ways to improve our event and I’d greatly appreciate you taking the time to fill it in and send it back to us. Thanks.
Looking forward to seeing you on a piste soon.
Stan Stoodley,
President, Scottish Fencing
