Yesterday saw the end of two days of intense fencing at the Rathmalana MDS fencing club premises with 124 fencers’, 32 teams competing for the champion slot and 24 individual medals set to be won in the 3 weapon categories, Epee, Foil and Sabre.
On the first day 4 weapon categories came to in the Men’s and Women’s category with J.H. Madushanke Randike of the Slimeline fencing club winning the Men’s Epee Gold medal while Dushan Lahiru of the Slimtex Fencing Club won the Silver medal in the same weapon category. In the Men’s Foil weapon category Suresh Sudarshana of the MDS Fencing club beat his fellow team mate Tharindu Madumal in the finals to win the Gold medal in his specialized weapon category. In the Women’s half of the championship on the first day, the gold medal for Women’s Foil was won by Ashoka Udayangani of the Silueta Fencing Club beating Sandeepa Sandamali of the Slimline Fencing Club while the Sabre weapon gold medal was won by Slimline Fencing Club’s Anuruddhika Dhananjali with the Silver medal being won by Chathurika Seneviratha of the Slimline Fencing Club.
In the bouts held today Manjula Fernando of the Unichela Fencing Club beat his team mate Sadesh Chandana in the Men’s Sabre weapon category. Both fencers being national champions who have won international medals too displayed their skill with the modern sword in the exhibition final bout held today as a part of the closing ceremony.
The reigning Sri Lanka national champion Niranjala Weeraratne regained her national top seed ranking beating Piyumi Nishanthi of the Linea fencing club. The bout was quite a brisk walk in the park for the reigning champion who was very tactical and brought her all experience from the international circuit too which proved too much for Piyumi to handle.
In the Men’s mixed weapon category the Unichela Fencing Club won the gold medal beating the Slimline Fencing Club through an evenly fought bout while the Slimline Fencing Club won Gold in the Women’s category beating the hosts MDS Fencing Club.
After taking into consideration the performances of the fencers and the bouts in the past 2 days the best Fencer Men’s award was won by Manjula Fernando of the Unichela Fencing Club while Anuruddhika Dhananjali of the Slimline Fencing Club walked away with the women’s category title. The overall champions of the National Fencing Championship was awarded to the Slimline Fencing Club who displayed much promising talent while the runner up award was won by the Unichela Fencing Club.
At the closing ceremony the figure known to be the “Godfather” of Sri Lankan boxing and a personality who was instrumental in introducing Fencing to the country, the President of the National Fencing Association of Sri Lanka ; Mr. Dian Gomez made an inspiring speech which touched the hearts of many in the audience and strongly worded that this sport is one which has much scope in this country and which is to be developed in years to come. “We have touched the grass root levels in introducing this sport by introducing it to schools with S.Thomas’ College being the first” he said stating the introduction of the sport to schools. “I hope the Royal- Thomian fencing encounter will be a dream which will come true during my lifetime” he added with a hope of pride in the eyes of the Old Royalist.
Fencing is a sport which definitely seems to be gaining in stature and popularity, it was evident by the way these athletes performed and showed much passion towards a sport new to them and the country. It can be said that the “Journey to the Olympics” in fencing seems bright for this Island nation.
