Wits fencers put on a grand showing at Ghana championships
- Tshepiso Mametela
The star quality of the Wits Fencing Club’s Ayanda Tuku and Harry Saner was put on full display as the pair took to the mat to represent South Africa at the 2020 Junior African Fencing Championships held on the shores of Ghana from 22 to 29 February.
The world number 93-ranked for the junior men's foil, Saner, and Tuku, who is formerly ranked 2nd in South Africa, eclipsed Nigeria 45-31 to seal their best result at the tournament. Since then, Saner has been selected to represent South Africa at the Junior World Championships in Salt Lake City, USA from the 4 to 11 April.
“I've also been selected in the foil for the Olympics zonal qualifiers to be held on 15 April in Cairo, Egypt,” said an elated Saner, describing his Ghanaian experience as difficult. “I was in a bad headspace going into the tournament and I felt that I had not recovered fully from my national competition the week before.”
Saner went on to draw in both the men’s foil and epee events before being edged by the epee champion in a tight match. “Overall, I am disappointed with my 7th place result but this is only fuel in my engine to push me forward to keep me working towards my goals. For the team events, we enjoyed more success; taking bronze in both foil and epee.
“Ayanda and I, along with the rest of our team, helped secure a convincing win against Nigeria in the bronze medal match. This was the first time two Wits fencers have won medals at the Junior African Championships,” said Saner.
For Tuku, who in January worked hard to raise funds en route to realising his dream of participating in his first Junior African Championships, the competition was filled with more lessons than expected. “For the first time in my life, I was introduced to an environment that takes fencing seriously,” said the junior fencer. “It was exciting to see that in other countries, the government actually puts in 100 per cent support in their fencers.
“I felt like this support actually allowed their fencers to perform to the best of their ability and not have to worry about the costs of the competition and stuff. For this reason, one could see a big difference between countries that are backed up at home and those that aren't,” added Tuku, thankful to have cracked the nod in his first international outing for South Africa.
“It was [however] an amazing experience to find a lot of competition. In terms of my performance: I can't really say if it was good or bad, seeing as though I don't have any other competition to compare it to. In this competition, I got an overall rank of 13 which is also my first international rank.”
2020 Junior African Fencing Champs
2020 Junior African Fencing Champs (Left: Ayanda Tuku and Harry Saner (just next to Ayanda)