On the first day of the Easter holidays I travelled to Rio De Janiero, Brazil to represent Great Britain in the Cadet and Junior World Fencing Championships. We arrived four days before the competition started so we had time to recover from the flight, get acclimatised, have our equipment tested and train. Each country is allocated a timed slot each day for training. Luckily the GB team had a morning slot which gave us the opportunity to visit some of the iconic sights of Rio in the afternoons - this included taking the mountain train through the forest to Christ the Redeemer, where we could look down over the city, and swimming on Copacabana beach. The competition took place in two of the venues built for the 2016 Olympics. On the morning of the individual competition I woke up not only with a nasty bug but also to find out that one of the Olympic velodromes, where I was supposed to be competing, had a major fire and everything had to be rearranged into the other arena. Despite my Illness I fenced really well in my first round poule, winning all of my fights. That gave me a bye straight to the direct elimination stage of top 64. Here I drew Chang (Chinese Taipei) and won 15-4. My next match was Aina (Italy) who is ranked 3rd in Europe. It was a really close match all the way through and I came really close losing out 14-15. I was really proud of how I fenced and finished 18th overall in the world.
The next day I was chosen to anchor the GB junior (U20) team. This meant I started and finished the matches. Our first match was against Bolivia which we won 15-3. We then drew USA and lost that match 45-30. Overall it was a fantastic experience to visit Rio and to represent GB on the world stage!
Eilidh P, L6T