Happy New Year to all the members, families, friends and guest of the Marconi Fencing Academy. The first training days commenced again last week, with a continuation of Monday and Thursday training nights. There are a number of administration tasks to complete early in the year as well as the normal training activities. These include:

1. Marconi Fencing Academy AGM 13 February 2012
2. Registrations for 2012 are now open (due by Feb 17 2012)

Please see one of the Committee members for more information for the year, we will provide members with a guide to the year’s events and competitions on registration.

U/11 Foil Men’s followed by Women’s:

U/13 Foil Men’s followed by Women’s:

U/15 Foil Men’s followed by Women’s:

U/17 Foil Men’s followed by Women’s:

U/20′s Foil Men’s followed by Women’s:

Open Men’s Foil:

Open Ladies Foil:

Open Men’s Epee:

Club Grand Prix Rankings

As at 2/6/2011

Welcome to 2011 for all previous and aspiring members of the Marconi Fencing Academy.

This year, we hope to consolidate on what we’ve learned in the past few years and to continue to grow our membership and experience base.

All 2010 members are welcome to signup for this years training sessions and also enquire about opportinues throughout the year. Please contact the Secretary or President for any further details.

For any coaching enquiries, please contact Oreste Gentile, Academy President and Coach.

Wishing you all the very best of health and success in 2011!

Oreste Gentile
President, Marconi Fencing Academy

All members and families should note that Saturday training sessions have been training due to the impact from various end of year presentations and award ceremonies.

I would like to thank everyone who attended this year, it has been a rewarding year for everyone who put in the hard yards and subsequently recieved some encouraging results. Keep up the good work!

My thanks to the Committee and other members who filled in over the course of the year when I was unavailable to keep training going.

All the best over the break and we will hopefully see you at the AGM and Christmas Party (also presentation day).

Kind regards,

Oreste Gentile
Secretary and Academy Coach

The Training page (available in the top links menu) has been updated so it’s the main source of information for training activities.

Everyone can now go there to know what to expect and what is expected of fencers at training.

Marconi Fencing Academy’s coaches and committee members are involved in running the new international fencing website, www.fencersport.com.

It currently has videos and will have training guides and other information in future.

Take a look and make sure you bookmark the page, its regularly updated.

I recommend to any of the older teenage fencers and adult fencers to take a look at this article, its very good. It talks about different methods for not only keeping fit as a fencer, but also how to target specific physical goals. It also talks about the timing with regards to the current fencing season and hitting the top of your training before a key event.

Well worth the read.

Marconi Fencing Academy Report, August 2010 (submitted to Marconi Wire Magazine)
The Fencing Academy members have yet again achieved great results in this period with Matthew Donald again winning another gold medal at the U/17 (Cadet) Men’s Foil Championships. Karl Baresic has also achieved a silver medal in the U/15 Men’s Foil Championships and Imogen Brush a bronze medal at the U/15 Women’s Foil Championship in Sydney. Rebekah Shiba, one of our youngest female fencers won gold at the U/11 Women’s Foil Championships.

Matthew Donald travelled to Seoul, Korea in July for the 2010 Asian World Cup. This was his first such event. The Australian team was one of the youngest to attend and although the results were close, they don’t indicate the preparation and hard work they’ve put in before the competition. The experience earned  kicks off the preparation for future tournaments for Matthew and the rest of the team. We will continue to watch out for more international results in the future. Good luck to all the team.

An increase in numbers at the Thursday night training sessions has given everyone who participates more exposure to intense bouting experience. Coupled with regular fitness
training, bouting is how most fencers will go on to effectively compete at all levels.  Monday also continues to be a popular training day.

Marconi Fencing Academy is also doing well for its size in the state club rankings being currently 5th of 22 clubs. This has been achieved by our relatively small number of fencers achieving great results at pretty much all competitions throughout the year. Keep it up!

If you or someone you know want to join our National and International level fencers in learning the Olympic sport of fencing, please come along on Mon night, Thursday night or Saturdays (at 1pm) to try it out. We have everything you need to get started, just turn up and give it a go!

Marconi Fencing Academy Report, June 2010 (Submitted to the Marconi Wire Magazine)

Our fencers have achieved some great results over the last few months. State and interstate competition have proven to be fierce this year, with high level athletes trying to grab some last minute points for qualification to the Commonwealth Games Fencing event, held again in Melbourne from September to October 2010. Congratulations go to all who have challenged these individuals on their road to the Games.

In particular, our Cadet and Junior fencers have excelled of late including (in order of age) Rebekah Shiba (1st U/11 School State Foil Champion), Jacob Dowson (5th U/13 School State Chmpship), Karl Baresic (2nd U/15 State Foil Chmpnship, 6th U/15 Foil), Imogen Brush (1st U/17 Epee State Champion, 5th Senior Epee), Ossian Deigan (1st U/15 Foil) and Matthew Donald ( 1st U/17 Foil State Champion, 2nd U/17 Sabre State Chmpship, 2nd Senior Boys School Chmpship, 3rd Open foil).

On the 2nd May, Marconi hosted its third year of the Marconi Cup Epee. This state Epee competition draws fencers from around the state and sometimes interstate and we are always happy to show what the Club and its members can offer. Our president, Joseph Salemi, achieved 2nd place with some tense moments felt by all who were watching. Thank you to the Academy Committee and members who came along to help setup, run the day and clean up afterwards.

A series of galleries are available below for you to view some of Marconi Fencing Academy’s history through photos:

2009 Special Guest Night – Robert Jordan

4 Marconi Fencing members travelled down to Canberra. The weather was cool and the venue spaceous.

In the end some great results:

Oreste Gentile – 6th

Matthew Donald – 8th

Max Peek (SHFC) – 12th

David McKay – 17th

Ralph Abend – 19th

The team set off for Civic shortly after 1:30pm and  sat down for a heary lunch at King O’Malley’s. Canberra sported some interesting entertainment ranging from a spanish guitarist singing ballads to a mob of ninjas paying us a visit during our meal (we still aren’t sure what this was all about).

Lunch was proceeded by a stroll around the block looking for a nice cafe. We eventually settle on a quaint little Italian gelateria (gelato cafe) where we consumed a mixture of lemoncello, various gelati followed by coffee.

All in all a great weekend, nice company and some sunshine to boot!

Well done everyone!

Tim Montrose – 3rd
Laurence Dooley – 13th
Norman Hunter – 13th

Well done to the lads of the Marconi Epee squad!

D’Artagnan Giampietro – 1st
Connor Harrison – 4th
Jonas Dowson – 6th
Gianni Rossi – 7th

Great job boys!

Jacob Dowson – 3rd
Karl Baresic – 5th
Max Esposito – 6th

Well done to all the boys who attended!

Norman Hunter – 6th

Well done to all.

The Member Season 2010 rankings have been updated.

You can view the current standings on website front page in the side bar. The scoring system can be viewed in the Member Points Allocation post (click on the link text to view the post).

We will be updating the standings for each competition going forward for this year.

Competition results include:

1. Open Foil, Novice
2. Gilt U/20 Foil
3. Open and Veteran Men’s Epee
4. Gilt U/13 Foil
5. Gilt U/11 Foil

Marconi Fencing Academy had 2 members attend this competition who achieved the following results:

Maximillian Peek – 1st

Matthew Donald – 6th

Well done.

Copied from comments:

The competition was touch for both Open and Novice competitions on the 14th. 5 fencers of Marconi made 6 entrants into events.

Our results are as follows:
Open Foil:
Matthew Donald (13th)
Ralph Abend (17th)
David McKay (20th)

Novice Foil:
Craig Harrison (5th)
Den Policarpio (6th)

Veteran Foil:
Ralph Abend (3rd)

Well done and congratulations to all, hope everyone had a good day!

Please check the NSWFA, AFF and Marconi Fencing Academy website for the latest calendar information.

A little history for those around long enough to remember or are interested to know. Below are some photos of our 2006 year. Being the 1st full year of our operation, it’s interesting to see how our academy membership has “grown” since those days.

2006 Gallery