It was another golden weekend for Canadian fencers in International competition this past weekend.
Women's Foil fencer, Eleanor Harvey (Hamilton, ON) tops the list with her podium gold at the FIE Satellite Tournament in Ankara, Turkey.  Harvey defeated Malina Calugareanu from Romania a convincing 10-0 in the final to earn gold and four important Rio Olympic qualifying points.  Ottawa native Kelleigh Ryan finished in ninth spot.
The Senior Epee teams were also in action this weekend, with the women in a World Cup in Nanjing, China while the men's World Cup was in Tallin Estonia.  Both teams are in still in the running for Olympic Qualification.  The Women's team, which consisted of Malinka Hoppe-Montanaro (Montreal, QC), Daria Jorquera-Palmer (Winnipeg, MB), Leonora MacKinnon (Canadian living in Newbury, GB) and Brittany Mark-Larkin (Ile Bizard, QC) are a few points behind Venezuela in the race for the Americas zone spot, and the draw saw Canada face Venezuela in the round of 32.  The team fought a hard battle but unfortunately lost in overtime by a score of 30-29.  Canada was fencing without its top individual fencer Leonora MacKinnon who sat out with an injury.  Canada finished in 18th spot while Venezuela was just ahead in 16th spot.  The team will have two more opportunities to make up the points gap.
The men's team finished fourth a few weeks ago in World Cup action and were looking forward to maintaining that momentum. It was not to happen as Canada faced the home team of Estonia in its first match and unfortunately lost by a score of 45-35.  The team of Hugues Boisvert-Simard (Quebec, QC), Max Brinck-Croteau (Markham, ON), Jean Lelion (Montreal, QC) and Laurie Shong (Vancouver, BC) finished in 18th place just a few spots behind Venezuela, who they are chasing in the points race for Rio with a few more events to go.
Meanwhile our younger competitive fencers took part in the North American Cup (NAC) in Kansas City, Missouri and have had two medals and seven top 16 performances so far.  
Cindy Gao (Toronto, ON) from Toronto Fencing Club finished top of the podium in Cadet Women's Epee, which had a total of 129 fencers.  Natasha Kis-Toth (Richmond, BC) representing Dynamo, finished in 13th spot.
Dylan French (Richmond, BC) also representing Dynamo, won bronze in Junior Men's Epee which had a field of 225 competitors while Dynamo teammate Matson Lalor (White Rock, BC) finished in 16th spot.
Other top 16 performances include:  Nikola Damjanovic representing Toronto FC who finished 12th in Cadet Men's Epee, Sean Grant who finished 13th in Junior Men's Foil, Hunter Moricz from NVFC who finished 14th in Cadet Men's Saber and Justin Boudreau, Zi Shan Guo and Christina Zozulya who finished 13th, 14th and 15th respectively in Y14 Women's Epee.  The event continues Monday with more opportunities for Canadian top performances.
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