Fencers vie for honours

More than 200 students from 28 secondary schools gathered at the Hong Kong Sports Institute to display their fencing skills at the weekend.

The Hong Kong Schools Individual Fencing Tournament 2000-2001 kicked off on Saturday at the institute in Sha Tin. The fencers competed in four events - boys' foil individual, boys' epee individual, girls' foil individual and girls' epee individual.

'This year the overall standard was higher than ever. Many of the participants are currently on the Hong Kong reserve team, and some of them represented Hong Kong at the Asian Youth Championships in August,' said Wong Yui-kei, chief coach of the SAR fencing team and supervisor of the tournament.

'Unfortunately, the scarcity of training facilities hinders further development of the sport.'

In the boys' foil individual, Kevin Ngan Kwoon-yat of New Method College took the Grade A (under-20) title, while Lam Chi-ming of Diocesan Boys' School (DBS) finished first in Grade B (under-16) and Haywood Lam Chin-fung of Chong Gene Hang College captured the championship in Grade C (under-14).

In the epee event, Wu Siu- cheung of Buddhist Kok Kwong Secondary School won the gold medal in Grade A; Chang Chun- ming of DBS took the Grade B title and Cheung Long-fung of Wah Yan College, Hong Kong finished first in Grade C.