Last weekend was the opening bout of the Imperial Women’s first season at Oxford. Unlike our other teams, the Women’s 1s are in the Premiership, which is the top league and extremely competitive. In this league it is usual to do all the matches in two or three intense weekends rather than weekly. First up on Saturday was Cardiff, which Imperial won with an impressive score of 130-107. The second match was against local rivals UCL, which Imperial again won 131-113. The final match of the day was against Cambridge where Imperial were narrowly beaten by only nine hits, with an overall score 111-120. There was only one match for the Women’s 1s on Sunday, against the hosting team, Oxford, where Imperial were unfortunately beaten with an overall score of 124-94. This means that the Women’s 1s have won two and lost two in their first four matches, putting them in a pretty good position going into the match against last year’s Championship winners Surrey.

Well done to all the team, especially to Maria Constantinescu and Sherry Xu for their first team debuts (even if Maria did miss the bus to Oxford after having overslept). A special mention also to Niamh Spence who had her Imperial debut at the weekend and fenced tremendously, including a 14-5 win. Also a big thank you to alumnus Zoe Robinson, who made time to come down to watch, coach and support the team.

It wasn’t just the Women’s 1s in action over the weekend though. In Manchester, Jamie Simpson and Harry Peck fenced in the Elite Épée event at the Manchester Fencing Centre. Jamie came 33rd out of 59 and Harry, fresh from winning the Irish Open last weekend, claimed bronze – the third time he has done so this season.

This week the fencing teams start their cup matches; the Men’s 1s are fencing Cardiff at home, alongside the 2s who face City University and the Men’s 3s are in action against Brunel away. The Women’s 2s are fencing Cambridge 2s, also away. If you want to find out the results before next week’s Felix, check out Imperial College Fencing on Twitter (IC_fencing) or find us on Facebook.