Over the weekend of September 27th-29th, fencers Maximilien Van Haaster of Montreal, and Jessica Zi Jia Guo of Toronto, participated in the Mexico City Satellite competition. Representing Canada in the Senior Men’s Foil and Senior Women’s Foil, respectively, both fencers came away with podium finishes: Van Haaster placing first, and Guo placing second.

At the age of 14, Guo is ranked an impressive 17th in the world. In Mexico City, she fell to American Maia Mei Weintraub, who placed first. Van Haaster, on the other hand, ranked 52nd in the world, came away on top of the competition, beating out Great Britain’s Marcus Mepstead in the final bout.

Additionally, this past weekend (October 4th-6th), Canadian fencers gained some international mileage competing in various events in Copenhagen, Cairo, Oslo, Reykjavik, and Geneva. Although no podium finishes, all fencers represented Canada well. In Iceland specifically, the CFF had twelve fencers compete in the Senior Women’s Sabre, eleven of which placed in the top twenty.

Top ten finishes by Leonora MacKinnon (5th in Senior Women’s Epee, Geneva); Gabriella Page, Yi Lin Lu, Bai Xun You Liu, and Rebecca Jeffrey (5th, 6th, 8th, and 10th respectively in Senior Women’s Sabre, Reykjavik,); Vanessa Dib (7th in Senior Women’s Epee, Oslo); and Grace Born (10th in Veteran Women’s Sabre, Cairo).

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