Plenty of home cheer at Cardiff World Cup as British wheelchair fencing squad make golden start to Paris 2024 Paralympic year
Dimitri Coutya won double gold and Piers Gilliver was also victorious as the University of Bath-based British wheelchair fencing squad bagged a fantastic five medals when Cardiff hosted the first World Cup of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games year.
Coutya gave the home crowd plenty to shout about when he claimed both the Category B epee and foil titles plus foil team silver with training partners Oliver Lam-Watson, Joshua Waddell and Gilliver, who won Category A epee gold and sabre bronze.
A dazzling display in Friday’s epee competition saw Coutya concede just 25 hits across his four knockout rounds as he stormed to victory, gold being secured with a 15-7 success against China’s Benjun Qin.
The same opponents battled it out in the foil final the following day, with Coutya again in dominant form as he beat Qin 15-4. He had only conceded nine hits in his previous three bouts, winning his semi-final against Daoliang Hu 15-2.
Gilliver had secured the host nation’s first medal of the week when he won Category A sabre bronze on the opening day, only being denied a place in the gold-medal showdown by a narrow 15-13 defeat to eventual champion Andrii Demchuk of Ukraine.
That defeat was avenged in the following day’s Category A epee round of 16, Gilliver winning 15-8, before hard-fought 15-13 victories over Zainulabdeen Al-Madhkhoori and Matteo Dei Rossi secured a place in the final against old rival Gang Sun of China.
World and Paralympic Champion Gilliver came out on top 15-12 to underline that he will once again be the man to beat in Paris this summer.
The week finished on another medal-winning note for Britain as Gilliver, Coutya, Lam-Watson and Waddell joined forces to reach the men’s foil team final thanks to a hard-won 45-40 victory over Ukraine and 45-32 success against France.
China came out on top 45-38 in the final but silver was an excellent reward for the British team, whose Wheelchair Fencing National Training Centre is based at the Team Bath Sports Training Village.
Their next major competition is March’s European Championships in Paris, which is also the venue for the biggest tournament of the year – this summer’s Paralympic Games.
Click here to find out more about the wheelchair fencing programme at the University of Bath.
