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.