Last Sunday, 11 of our members competed in the popular Delft Tegeltjestournament. One of our members entered in the women’s sabre, and 6 in the men’s sabre tournament, and in the epéé tournament 4 of our members competed. Besides that, in the afternoon we entered 2 teams in the recreational sabre equipe competition.
In women’s sabre, our chairman Nienke entered as one of the 14 participants. In the poule, she managed to win 2 out of 6 bouts, placing her 11th on the tableau of 16. Her first DE was against Esther Groenheide (HollandSchermen), who was placed 6th. After an exciting bout, Nienke managed to win it with 15-11, resulting in one of her first wins in an elimination. During the quarter finals, Nienke had to fence Mandy Claessens (ASSV Esprit). Nienke fenced her in the poule as well and it was expected to be a difficult bout. This indeed was the case, as Mandy eventually won the match by 15-4. However, with her 8th position, Nienke delivered an excellent result which also is worth points for the National rankings.
With the men’s sabre competitions, Nick, Tim, Thomas, Béla and our trainers Jan and Nico participated. Nick and Thomas were placed in a poule together and Thomas won their bout by 5-4. In total, Thomas won 3 out of 6 bouts, and Nick 1 of 6. This placed them on 18th and 25th position, respectively. Tim was placed in a poule with some strong opponents, but still won 2 out of 6 games, placing him 22th on the tableau. Jan’s poule was very difficult with some unplaced very strong opponents, besides the placed opponents. Jan still managed to win 2 bouts, among one against Teun Plantinga, ex-Dutch Champion. This placed him 24th. Béla and Nico both had little difficulties with fencers in their poule and won all matches, placing Béla 5th and Nico 2nd.
Due to their placement on the tableau, both Jan and Nick had to fence some tough opponents in their first eliminations. Nick fenced David Gardenier, who was placed 8th, and he couldn’t get a grip on him, eventually resulting in a 15-1 loss. Jan fenced Dirk-Jan Bouwman, who was placed 9th. Due to the speed of this opponent, Jan unfortunately had to bend the knee with 15-3. Tim fenced the strong Rik Adema, placed 11th. Yet, Tim could quite get along with him and this resulted in a very exciting match. In the end, Tim lost with 15-12. After their eliminations, Tim, Jan and Nick finished at 22th, 24th and 25th place, respectively.
With his 18th position, Thomas got quite an equal opponent, namely Olaf Ziebell from Germany, placed 15th. At first, Thomas had a bit of a hard time and this resulted in a 8-6 score during the break. During the minute break, Nico gave him some tactical advice, which Thomas used very well in the second part of the bout, eventually winning it with 15-11. Due to this win, Thomas, who’s only been fencing for one year, could go and get himself ready for the next bout against his own trainer, Nico, who just won his elimination against the Scot Paul Donaldson with 15-10. Menawhile, Béla also won his elimination with a 15-4 against Lászlo Marácz.
In the next round, Béla won his match with a 15-8. The bout between Nico and Thomas was never really exciting, as Nico knows Thomas well and teaches him how to fence regularly. Nico won it with 15-7. Despite this loss, Thomas did incredibly well on this competition day, ending 14th and scoring some points for on the Dutch rankings as well.
During the quarter finals, Béla fenced the Hungarian Miklos Farkas, placed 4th. This would be his first real test for the day. Both started strong and it quickly turned into a very exciting match. Going in the minute-break, Béla was 6-8 behind and got some tactical coaching from Nico and Jan. Béla used this feedback very well and got more grip on his opponent, winning the match with 15-12. Nico also found himself a strong opponent in Quinton Faas, who is currently placed 4th on the National rankins. Both of them started out strong and just like Béla, Nico was 6-8 behind entering the one minute break. Béla and Jan used this time well for coaching, and this lead to a 15-13 for Nico, after a tough bout.
More difficult bouts ahead in the half finals! Béla had to fence 9-fold Dutch champion Robbert Goossens, while Nico was placed against the strong Belgian Philippe Jacques. Béla and Robbert know each other very well and this was visible throughout the bout. It was also very visible why Robbert is 9-fold Dutch champion, as he started to gear up his game after the rest, making it nearly impossible for Béla to follow up. Eventually, Béla lost this match with 8-15.
Nico had troubles following his opponents game from the beginning of the bout on, leading him into a 3-8 score before the minute break. After some coaching from Béla and Jan, he tried to make it right, but unfortunately he couldn’t. Nico spent too much energy during the quarter finals. These eliminations resulted in a shared 3rd place for Béla and Nico.
The competition results from men’s epéé will be added later.
After the individual comp, Don Quichote also participated in the team event with 2 teams. We decided to mix experienced fencers with our beginner and semi-experienced fencers, to give them the chance to learn a lot from today under supervision of a coach and an experienced fencer.
Béla, Jan, Thomas and Nienke formed the first equipe, The Dutch Windmills. Unfortunately they were placed in quite a high-level poule. The first match was against Delfsprit, an equipe with members from Esprit (Amsterdam) and the winner of the individual comp earlier the day, Philippe Jacques. This match was lost with a large difference in score (16-45), causing The Dutch Windmills to be eliminated after the poules. The other matches against The Three Musketeers, also from Nijmegen, and Team V, were much better and we won both of those. Eventually this Don Quichote-equipe was placed 6th in the team event.
The other equipe, Sancjo Pancho, including Nico, Tim and Nick, was more lucky with their poule. This poule included an equipe combining the two organizing clubs, and a women’s equipe from Scaramouche (Arnhem). Our equipe won all matches and therefore entered the half finals! Their opponent were the gentlemen from Surtout, who were a bit too strong for our equipe. This resulted in our equipe fencing for 3rd position with the second Surtout equipe. Tension grew as Tim and Nick had quite some trouble with the experienced fencers in the Surtout equipe. Nico had to prove his position as a captain and fight hard to earn back some points. Nevertheless he started the last manche with a 34-40 back log, and Nico didn’t disappoint! He fenced a 11-2 against the Surtout captain, resulting in a 45-42 win and a 3rd place for Don Quichote!
Podium equipe event with on the right Sancjo Pancho. (© Mark Wijkhuizen)
