Patrick Collings

Between bouts during yesterday’s training competition.

It is a Blues training tradition to wrap up main preparation for a national competition with a practice competition at the club. We ran two T16 DE to all places competitions today for our epeeists competing in the upcoming Cape Open national ranking competition.

Saturday training: hurdles, sharing experiences, exhaustion (as well as cognitive fitness, footwork, and bouting drills).

Blues Fencing has just launched its new website. We have pared back the content to focus on the essentials, with a design favouring smartphones where most people tend to find our website.

All the best to Nanette Spencer, who is in Bahrain for the Veteran World Championships. 2025 has been a triple world championship year for Blues, with our fencers representing SA in the Cadet and Junior World Championships, the Senior World Championships, and now the Veteran World Championships.

Flèche training at Blues.

When it is a little too hot to train, you invent Blade Balloon Volley. It took us several iterations to come up with a game format that kind of worked.

Blues added another two national championships to its trophy cabinet, with Pavlo Swanepoel winning the senior and U20 men’s epee championships in Botswana. Brilliant performance.

Saturday afternoon training drills at Blues.

Blues was honoured to host Xolelwa Veli from the government’s Department of Sports, Arts and Culture. Xolelwa spent a couple of hours with our coaches and epeeists, discussing a range of topics including our athlete training and development programmes as well as our community outreach initiatives.

Clean sweep of women’s epee on the first day of the FWC III provincial competition in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Blues won gold in women’s veteran, and took all podium positions in senior, U20, and U17 women’s epee (including the fencers who Blues shares with UCT Fencing).

Faces from Monday night training,

Saturday footwork training with Blues coach Albert Milani.

Massive shout out to Blues pentathletes Tatiana Thomatos and Daniel Grove for their top 10 world rankings in the latest UIPM rankings. Tatiana is 5th in the world in the Youth U17 ranking for women, and Daniel is 10th in the world for Youth U17 ranking for men.

When you are at fencing, but the revisions to your doctoral thesis really need to be in.

Congratulations to UCT / Blues fencer Tiago Do O Filipe for winning silver in U20 men’s epee at the SA Junior National Championships. Mia Cruywagen took bronze in U17 women’s foil to bring the weekend medal toll for Blues to two gold, one silver and two bronze

Excellent first day at SA Junior National Championships for Blues Fencing with Gemma Bellini winning the U17 women’s epee championship and Daniel Grove winning the U17 men’s championship. Isi Nonkunzi won bronze in U15 men’s epee.

Blues and Future Champions Academy are excited to announce a partnership to take the international competitiveness of Blues fencers to new levels, especially in FIE world cups, grand prix, and world championships. The long-term objective is to produce competitive Olympic fencers.

Blues training competition ahead of the Junior National Championships in a week’s time. Good combination of junior, senior, and veterans fencers to help prepare our U20 and U17 fencers going to the championships.

Congratulations to the Blues men’s epee team of Liam Els and Aragón Afonso, who won the U15 En Garde Open two-man team competition and came third in the U18 team event at the weekend.

How many junior epeeists does it take to change a contact spring?

Well done to Blues pentathletes Tatiana Thomatos, 15, and Daniel Grove, 16, who made it to the final round of the U19 Pentathlon World Championships in Lithuania. A great achievement.

All the best to Blues pentathletes Tatiana Thomatos and Daniel Grove, who are on their way to Lithuania to compete in the UIPM 2025 Pentathlon U19 World Championships.

The in-between bout discussions that probably have nothing to do with the bouts.

Blues coaching assistant Ruqaya Ismail keeping track of fencing bouts during Blues U15 foil training sessions.

Congratulations to Tatiana Thomatos for winning individual bronze and leading the South African team to silver in the women’s events at the U17 Pentathlon World Championships in Johannesburg. A brilliant effort from the 15-year-old in a very tough competition.

Phakama, Phumza and Lexiy heading off to Georgia for the World Championships where they will be representing South Africa in the women’s epee individual and team events.

Best of luck to the Blues pentathletes taking part in the Pentathlon U17 World Championships in Johannesburg. In the photo are Tatiana, Daniel, Renso, Liam, Aragon, and Jack. Blues looks after the fencing coaching for the pentathletes.

Congratulations to Blues pentathlete Kari Hillebrand, who won bronze with her teammate Johan Schoeman in the U19 mixed relay event at the U19 World Pentathlon Relay Championships in Egypt.

All the very best to Anastasia, who is returning to Moscow next week. A consummate professional in training and competition, Anastasia is going to be missed by her Blues family. But the fencing world is small, and goobyes are rarely forever.