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.

All of our Cadets have benefitted from training with our Junior (U20) fencers – Benedict, Miles Raymond, Will Briggs and Matthew Gathern – 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 2024, 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. He will now decline his GB selections for the rest of this season to focus on his GCSEs. Smart, Lloyd!

For Eilidh, though, this season continues with the Euro Cadet event in Bratislava in January, then Krakow in February. “I’m looking forward to continuing my journey and gaining more experience whilst having fun along the way”, said Eilidh.

Looking ahead
Next season, when the current final-year Cadets have moved into the Juniors, everyone else will move significantly up the Cadet rankings.

Assuming that the rankings stay more-or-less the same through until the end of the international season in April, and that British Fencing won’t tinker with the selection system in the meantime, we can guesstimate in what ranking positions our continuing Cadet fencers will start the 2024-25 season by doing the following:

• Removing the final-year Cadets (born 2007) from the projected rankings;
• Factoring in the 35% carry-over of this season’s points to next season; and
• Predicting which fencers with an U14 transition bonus for making the podium at the British Youth Championships (BYCs) in April/May 2024 could leapfrog their way up the rankings.

With this in mind, the positions will be:

GIRLS:

2nd Eilidh (3,701 points)

11th Andrea (1,936)

14th Izzie (1,749)

24th-26th Daisy (1,191)

25th-27th Hiba (1,148)

BOYS:

3rd Lloyd (4,233)

23rd-26th Zach (968)

45th-48th Alec (228)

In fact, Alec’s number of ranking points at the start of next season could be as high as 1,500 if he wins the BYC U14 title in 2024, and his Cadet ranking could be as high as 20th as a result of this ‘transition bonus’.

Incredibly, RTWFC has a shot at making up about 20% of the British Euro Cadet Circuit team for the first EFC U17 event of next season (that’s assuming British Fencing selects 20 fencers like it did this season)! Lloyd and Eilidh are in strong positions, and just with carry-over alone will be selected for the first Euro Cadet Circuit comp of 2024-25, and Andrea and Izzie are well positioned too.

Whether it’s Alec in his first year as a Cadet, Eilidh and Izzie in their middle year, or Lloyd, Andrea and co in their final year, it’ll be onwards and upwards for RTW’s fantastic Cadet fencers next season.

With the 2023-24 domestic Cadet (U17) ranking season finished, and with last season’s carry-over points removed (and other nationalities in the rankings taken out of the equation), we now know where our fencers are ranked based solely on their performances in the British Ranking Competitions (BRCs) this season. A roll on the drums, please…

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)

These rankings could change a bit before the end of the international season due to European Fencing Confederation (EFC) U17 events in Copenhagen, Bratislava, Belgrade and Krakow, as well as the European & World Champs. However, as it’s only the top 14 fencers in action in Copenhagen and Bratislava – which are ‘Nominated’ by British Fencing and therefore score 5-7 times more ranking points than the other two comps – the resulting changes will be limited to a potential reshuffle at the top of the tree. It’s worth noting, though, that BF has designated Belgrade and Krakow as ‘Development’ competitions, which means that any Cadet in the top 40 can apply for entry, so there could be the odd sneaky leapfrog going on from fencers outside the top 14.

Starter’s orders

Assuming the rankings stay more-or-less the same, and that British Fencing won’t tinker with the selection system in the meantime, we can guesstimate in what ranking positions our continuing Cadet fencers will start the 2024-25 season by doing the following:

• Removing the final-year Cadets (born 2007) from the projected rankings;
• Factoring in the 35% carry-over of this season’s points to next season; and
• Predicting which fencers with an U14 transition bonus for making the podium at the British Youth Championships (BYCs) in April/May 2024 could leapfrog their way up the rankings.

With this in mind, the guesstimated positions are:

GIRLS:

2nd Eilidh (3,701)

11th Andrea (1,936)

14th Izzie (1,749)

24th-26th Daisy (1,191)

25th-27th Hiba (1,148)

BOYS:

3rd Lloyd (4,233)

23rd-26th Zach (968)

45th-48th Alec (228)*

* Could be as high as 1,500 if he wins the BYC U14 title, and his ranking could be as high as 20th.

Looking ahead

Incredibly, RTWFC has a shot at making up about 20% of the British Euro Cadet Circuit team for the first EFC U17 event of next season (that’s assuming BF selects 20 fencers like it did this season)! But how does one get on this team?

Lloyd and Eilidh are in strong positions, and just with carry-over alone will be selected for the first Euro Cadet Circuit comp of 2024-25. This season, at the first selection point, the 20th fencer in the rankings had around 2,200 points (Girls) and 2,800 points (Boys). So, how does one accumulate these points?

The BRCs are either the National Championships or A or B grades, which have multipliers of 200, 175 and 100 respectively. If you finish 1st at the Cadet Nationals it scores 4,000 points (the ‘final position multiplication factor’ for 1st is 20, so it’s 20 x 200 points); 3rd is about 2,800; 8th 2,200; 16th 1,500; 32nd 1,100, and so on. The A grades score a slightly lower amount and B grades score only half of these points. Note that you have to finish in the top 80% to score more than 1 point at a BRC, and only your top 6 finishes count towards your ranking points total.

With two B grades usually held before the first selection point in the season (typically, this is early September), and top 32 finishes in both, our fencers can add 1,200 points to their total, while two last 16s will add 1,800. If you start the season with carry-over of about 1,000, two top 16 finishes should be enough to secure selection for the first Euro Cadet event of the season (again, assuming that BF selects 20 male and 20 female fencers). The Cadet National Champs, with its chance to add as many points in one go as two B grades put together, is usually held in September. You may need to make the best of this potential points bonanza, though, because BF might only select the top 14 in the rankings after the Nationals for the second EFC U17 event of the season. The points difference between 20th and 14th can be as much as 2,000, so if you start the season outside the top 20, you may well need three last-16 finishes in a row to make inroads into the top 20.

In this respect, it is crucial that you beat your closest rivals when you fence them – especially in direct elimination bouts, because if you knock them out you’ll score more points than them and can either overtake them in the rankings (if they’re ahead) or stay ahead of them (if they’re behind).

It’s in Europe at the comps that BF nominates for selection that you can really start racking up the points: finishing 64th will score about 3,500 points, and winning will score 20,000 points or more. Wowser! We’ll cover the European Circuit in more detail, and how to qualify for the Euro & World Champs, in another article.