Our Cadets march on

RTWFC’s Cadets (U17) have had another successful season of domestic ranking competitions, with two fencers embedded in the top 10 of the British rankings, another in the top 20, and five more who’ve put themselves in with the chance of climbing into the top 20 next season.

Building on the success of the 2022-23 season, when Benedict Graham and Lloyd Osborne were ranked in the top 15 and the former won a bronze medal at a British Ranking Competition (BRC), this season Lloyd and Eilidh Paterson have maintained top 10 rankings throughout the season, with both reaching the quarter-finals of the National Championships. Our dynamic duo have also added to their medal collections this season: Lloyd has bagged one BRC bronze (Manchester) and Eilidh two (Rickmansworth and Hendon).

At the close of the 2023-24 domestic Cadet ranking season, our fencers are ranked as follows:

Girls:

6th Eilidh Paterson (10,575 points)

19th Andrea Ross (5,534)

22nd Izzie D’Abbraccio (4,994)

32nd Daisy Beadsworth (3,403)

33rd Hiba Rochdi (3,280)

34th Annabelle Lavin (2,889)

53rd Hannah Taylor (656)*

(*didn’t do half of the ranking comps)

Boys:

8th Lloyd Osborne (12,097)

40th Zach Bench (2,768)

75th Alec Hargreaves (652)*

(*not yet a Cadet; only did one BRC)

Last season, our competitively active Cadets finished in 16th, 21st, 26th and 29th position, so the club’s march up the rankings this time around has been impressive. Next season, when the current final-year Cadets have moved into the Juniors, Eilidh could have an initial ranking of second and Lloyd third, and everyone else will move up significantly too. (To see how this will happen, and for an explanation of how the ranking system works, click here.)

All of our Cadets have benefitted from training with our Junior (U20) fencers – Benedict, Miles Raymond, Will Briggs, Matthew Gathern and Will Patten (when he’s in town) – this, and the training camp in Budapest, has really served to sharpen everyone up.

To pick just two examples of how well our fencers have progressed this year, Andrea was beaten 15-9 in the U16 final of the Regional Championships in February: at the Cadet BRC in London on 2nd December, Andrea fenced the same opponent – and won 15-4! In May, Eilidh was bested in the British Youth Championship U14 final by a score of 15-12: at the Cadet BRC in London, she beat the same adversary by a score of 15-7!

Eilidh and Lloyd have also been selected to fence for Britain on the European Cadet Circuit four times already this season, and Andrea Ross once. Lloyd reached the last 64 of the event in Klagenfurt, Austria – his 54th place comfortably beating the previous club record European finish of 109th set by Benedict in 2022-23. This result means that Lloyd is part-qualified for the Cadet World Championships in April next year, but has his sights set on the Worlds next season instead. “Ive achieved what I wanted for the year, next year I’ll fence even better,” Lloyd commented. That’s the spirit!

For Lloyd and Eilidh, though, this season continues with the Euro Cadet event in Copenhagen on 9-10th December, and Eilidh will continue to accept GB selections – so should be off to Bratislava in the new year too. “I’m looking forward to continuing my journey and gaining more experience whilst having fun along the way”, said Eilidh as she waited at Gatwick to catch the plane to Denmark – the next stop on her European Cadet adventure.

It’s onwards and upwards for RTW’s fantastic Cadet fencers.