People

Chris Cranston-Selby

Chairman.

Chris is an open-minded, pragmatic and fair individual; attributes which are well suited to help the board reach consensual, balanced decisions that will help the sport grow and progress, from the grass roots to the elite level.

His background within the fencing community is from an able bodied perspective, and over the last seven years of involvement, he has competed both in the UK and abroad, gained coaching qualifications and used these at club level but also in assisting with a university performance programme. However, he has involved himself with the wheelchair fencers at his own club, so gaining an insight into their world, and he recently attended a wheelchair coaching course. In 2016 Chris was appointed as an active Non-Executive Director of the England Fencing Board.

On a personal note, he has recently retired from running his own business; something he has done successfully for more than twenty-five years, and acquired the ability to manage people’s expectations, as well as his own, and take effective decisions to allow the business to succeed even through poor economic climates.

Eileen Hamilton

Vice Chairman

Eileen has been involved in fencing for the past 25 years and progressed from training and competition chauffeur to assisting at GB run events and eventually becoming responsible for all the BF merchandise – liaising with the manufacturers re design and ordering and thence on to selling at the major BF events each year. She was also GB JMF squad team manager and accompanied the GB cadet and junior teams to various World and European Championships.

Following on from this she was the assistant team manager for England Fencing at the inaugural Junior Commonwealth Fencing Championships in Chennai, and was team manager at the last Commonwealth Championships (both Junior and Cadet) held in Cape Town in 2015. This was a mammoth task aided by Lorraine Rose. They arranged travel and accommodation for two full teams of fencers together with coaches and organized trips around Cape Town for all the team – almost 60 people over a 10 day period.

Eileen has also been the team manager for England at 8 School Games. This has been hard but fun as it is a 4 day event with 24 able-bodied fencers and 3 coaches and since 2011 it has involved wheelchair fencers and coaches as part of the team too.

It is through this connection with the wheelchair fencers and their family members that Eileen’s interest in Wheelchair fencing has developed, having learned so much through her contact with them and scratched the surface of what life with a disability is like. Eileen interested in getting the youngsters to advance to competitions around the world and show what they can achieve. She persuaded Piers Gilliver to attend his first School Games and has seen how success has changed his life. Josh Waddell was a School Games novice last year and in the year following became a World medallist. It is Eileen’s hope that more medallists will emerge in the future at all age levels.

Peter Rome

WCP Coach

Peter has been qualified as a fencing coach since 1996, during that time he has coached members of the five nations national teams, gold medalists at junior and senior Commonwealth, British and Irish under 17 and Under 23 team, World and European medalists. Most notably he has coached and team managed medal winning performances at age group and senior world championships, with many firsts along the way. Double gold medal world cups, gold medal at foil, epee and sabre. Double world champions and the first Paralympic individual medal for 24 years.

He has also been an international referee, armourer and team manger to many major tournaments.

Competition performance coaching is Peter’s passion. Peter was appointed WCP Coach after the Rio Paralympics.

Email: [email protected]

Peter with Piers Gilliver

Viv Mills

Secretary

Viv has been involved with wheelchair fencing since 2009. She fenced for Great Britain from 2010 until the end of 2012, winning a bronze medal in foil at the Montreal World Cup in 2010 and a bronze medal in sabre in Hong Kong in 2012. After her retirement she retrained as a development coach and was involved in helping the GB fencers with their personal development until 2014.

Viv was briefly Acting Chairman of the BDFA from October 2013 until May 2014 and since has continued to be involved with the sport, travelling to most of the foreign competitions and providing voluntary support to the team. In 2014 Viv joined the Board of England Fencing as an Executive Director, with a remit to develop diversity in the sport.

Viv was appointed as an ambassador to wheelchair fencing in 2015 and she has worked on the expansion of the sport into a number of countries. In 2016 she was awarded the Fair Play Award for her services to wheelchair fencing worldwide.

Email:[email protected]

Adebola Odeyemi

Treasurer

Adebola is employed by the BPA, and has been the treasurer of the BDFA for 2 years.

Lorraine Rose

Board Member

Responsible for Governance

Alan Sheriff

Board Member

Responsible for Development

Adrian Speakman

Board Member

Responsible for funding opportunities

Maggie Maynard

Board Member

Assistant Secretary

World Cup, Sao Paulo – the fifth qualification competition for Tokyo 2020

Piers and Dimitri deliver again

Piers and Dimitri had a very successful trip to Sao Paolo, with Dimitri taking gold in both the Cat B foil and epee competitions, and Piers taking gold in the Cat A epee and bronze in the sabre.

In the Cat A sabre Piers had 5 wins and no losses, and was ranked 2 in the tableau of 32, had a bye in that round and beat Citerne of France 15-3 in the L16. In the L8 he met and beat Shaburov of Russia 15-12. In the semi finals Piers lost to Demchuk of Ukraine 15-11.

Piers receiving his bronze medal from Udo Ziegler (IWAS)

In the Cat B foil Dimitri had 4 wins and no losses in the poules and was ranked 2 in the tableau of 32. He had a bye in the L32 and met and beat the Iraqi Ali Amar 15-3 in the L16. In the L8 he beat the Italian Cima 15-6, and in the semi-final he beat Khamatshin of Russia and in the final he met and beat Kamalov of Russia 15-5.

Dimitri with his first gold medal.

In the Cat B Epee poules Dimitri had a shocker by his standards with just 3 wins and 3 losses. He was ranked 15^th in the tableau of 32 with Shah Rashid one place below him also with 3 wins and 3 losses. In the L32 Dimitri beat Massarutti 15-10, Shah lost to Pluta 15-6. In the L16 Dimitri beat his nemesis Ali Amar 15-12 and progressed to the L8 where he met Kurzin of Russia and won 15-4. In the semi-final Dimitri beat his old friend Sasha Kuzyukov of Russia 15-9 and in the final – Oleg Naumenko of Ukraine 15-6.

Dimitri getting his second gold medal from Charmaine Hooper CEO of IWAS

Men’s Cat A epee saw Piers take 5 wins and no losses in his poules and was ranked 3 in the tableau of 64 receiving a bye to the L32 where he met Canadian, Ryan Rousell. A victory 15-4 saw him progress to the L16 where he met Noble of France, winning 15-5. In the L8 he beat the Italian Lambertini 15-8, and in the semi-final he beat Yusupov of Russia with the same score. In the final Piers defeated Schmidt of Germany 15-4.

Piers getting his gold medal.

In the team epee GB beat Italy 45-41, lost to Iraq 45-43, beat Brazil 45-29 and beat Ukraine 45-43 to finish 5^th.

Other notable performances came from Gemma Collis-McCann who fenced well in the women’s Cat A sabre, beating Soares of Brazil in the L32 and taking the current world number 1, Morkvych to 15-10 in the L16 match.

Mat Campbell-Hill also fenced well in the Cat A epee, winning 4 poule matches and taking some interesting scalps along the way. Ollie Lam-Watson had a consistent competition in both foil and epee, winning 3 poule matches and being competitive in his DE’s.

Shah Rashid was unlucky to catch a referee on a bad day in the sabre. Shah once again fenced consistently.

One sad note from this competition was the Greek coach who collapsed on the piste after complaining vehemently about the refereeing. He was taken to hospital with a suspected heart attack and kept in hospital overnight.