A very well done to Rob, who competed in Category 1 of the Men’s British Veterans Fencing Competition in Nottingham this weekend. There were 12 entrants in this event and it was competed over 1 poule of the full 12 fencers. Rob won seven of his poule matches, with four of those having his opponent landing only two hits, two of those wins his opponent only landed three hits and last was the only close call with Rob just winning by five hits to four. In the matches that he lost, Rob managed to score three hits in two of them and, for the other two, it was close calls with Rob just missing out five hits to four in each. This meant that Rob had an overall indicator score of +11, which was the fourth highest indicator overall. Unfortunately for Rob, one of his opponents, despite having an indicator of only +7, had managed to win 8 of his bouts, which pushed Rob down to fifth overall. Because this was a poule unique, where every fencer faces each other, it meant that they didn’t follow up with the Direct Elimination round, which as we all know, is detrimental to Rob, who thrives on the tactics required for the fifteen point matches.

To his credit, upon further analysis of the poule matches, it shows that in the poules, Rob beat the competitors who were awarded gold, silver and fourth place and, he only lost to the bronze medallist by 1 point, showing that had the DE taken place, Rob would have indeed been quite the medal contender…but then we all knew that anyway!

So, to conclude, apologies to Rob for the old photo accompanying this report, but let’s face it, apart from a change in haircut, it never gets old (and neither does he)! Finally, a huge congratulations from all of us here at Gravesham Rob. We’re pretty sure, given the poule results that you would have indeed medalled had a Direct Elimination been run. From this day forward you’ll have to be known as ‘Robbed Jennings’! Well done Rob.