April 20 – In day two of the 2015 Senior Pan Am Fencing Championships, Canada reaches the podium again, this time earning silver in Individual Men’s Epee. Maxime Brinck-Croteau (Markham, ON) climbed to the second step of the podium despite a number of injuries.

“The day was  special because I did not feel good from the start and I have a wrist and foot injury,” said Brinck-Croteau, who went six wins and zero losses after pools giving him a ranking of third overall heading into the elimination bouts.

“I won three bouts in overtime mostly because I was playing it safe.  The fact that I could not move a lot was a good thing for me because I was not making a lot of mistakes,” explained Brinck-Croteau. “Every action or movement that I did was for a specific reason and this worked well right through the Elimination bouts.”

Brinck-Croteau had a bye and then fenced two Americans in a row safely winning both matches.  In the semi-final, he faced Reynier Henriquez Ortiz from Cuba, an opponent that he defeated in overtime in pool play. Brinck-Croteau kept the same strategy and once again defeated him in overtime, earning him a trip to the final.

In the finals, he faced London Olympic gold medalist Ruben Limardo from Venezuela and lost his first bout of the day by a score of 10-6.  “Limardo is a very strong fencer and I missed a couple of actions so he took the lead and kept it,” noted Brinck-Croteau. In summarizing his day, Brinck-Croteau is “very happy with today’s results overall because it puts me in a good position for Olympic qualification.”

Stated Men’s Epee National Program Coach, Victor Gantsevich (Richmond, BC): “Today we had great fencing from the Canadian Men’s Epee Team.  The full team made individual top 16’s and only three countries achieved that – Canada, USA and Venezuela. Max’s performance was great and he will only get better.  I am looking forward to the Team competition now and expecting a better result than last year.”

Hughes Boisvert-Simard (Quebec, QC) and Leland Guillemin (Saskatoon, SK) went out in the round of 16.  Guillemin was eliminated by fellow Canadian Jean Lelion (Montreal, QC) who lost his next bout in the round of 8.

Women’s Sabre was also in action today. Both Marissa Ponich (Edmonton, AB) and Gabriella Page (Blainville, QC) lost their bouts in the round of 16, with Page losing a thriller to the number one seed USA’s Faizah Muhammad by a close score of 15-13.  Meredith Giroux (Hamilton, ON) lost a hard fought round of 32 bout.

Individual competition resumes Monday with Men’s Sabre and Women’s Foil.

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