British Fencing are excited to support Welsh Fencing and Scottish Fencing to include Wheelchair Fencing at their Open events in November 2023.
As part of Welsh Fencing and Scottish Fencing’s commitment to provide opportunities for wheelchair fencing competitions, they will be including an Open wheelchair competition, meaning no classification is required.
The Home Nations are aware that not everyone who wants to fence sitting down is currently classified or is interested or able to be classified under the Paralympics system and they don’t want that to stop people from being able to take part in the sport.
If you have always been fascinated by wheelchair fencing, but you aren’t a wheelchair user day to day, these events are also for you.
Matt Russell, Chair of Welsh Fencing said “we are really looking forward to including wheelchair fencing for the first time at the Open in November and with the support of Sport Wales and Disability Sport Wales, we now have the equipment needed to make this happen. We also hope this will generate excitement around the upcoming Wheelchair Fencing World Cup being held here in Cardiff in January.”
Clare Queen, COO of Scottish Fencing said “We are excited to include wheelchair fencing in this year’s Scottish Open and hope that this opportunity will contribute to attracting more people to the sport. We are grateful for the support and guidance we have received from the team at British Fencing and look forward to continuing this work to develop wheelchair fencing in Scotland.”
To find out more information on the work that is taking place in the wheelchair fencing space, please come along to our Community Discussion event on Tuesday 10th October. The session will be running at midday as well as 6pm and is open to anyone wanting to find out more.
Further information on the events can be found below:
Welsh Open – 11th -12th November 2023, Sport Wales National Centre, Sophia Gardens, Cardiff CF11 9SW
Scottish Open – 26th November 2023, The PeakStirling Sports Village, Forthside Way, Stirling FK8 1QZ
