Training pays off for fencing pair

Long nights of training under car headlights have paid off for Geraldine High School’s Tom Batty and Cullen Bolt after they beat the big names at the Fieldays Silver Staples pairs fencing competition.

A 60.7 point total was cemented by an outstanding performance in the post section where they only had 13.3 points docked from a potential demerit position of 30 points.

Runners up in the under 23 contest were Puemiro Station One’s Ben Soloman and Holly Bird on 74.1 points and third was Smedley Station One’s Will Long and Ged Billing on 78.6 points.

The second GHS team of Cayden Howell and Isabelle Atkinson were fifth with 98.8 points in the six-team field.

GHS is the first South Island team across any age group to win a fencing category at Mystery Creek after competing the past three years.

GHS Primary Industries Academy head Sarah Foley-Smith said it was also the first time high school students had won a category typically dominated by cadets at Smedley and Puemiro stations.

"We were the only school there and everyone else is the big stations in the North Island so we should come last on paper. So we are very happy to have done so well. Oomph, enthusiasm and hard work got them there. They have been fencing in the dark to practise because they could only fence after school on the field with the truck headlights on."

She said their training was limited because they had schoolwork and all of them worked on farms outside of school hours.

The students made a competition area, backfilling competition lines with sand to mimic ground conditions at Mystery Creek.

Mrs Foley-Smith said the biggest challenge for the fencers during the training phase was having to dig into clay and rocks, but the easier sandy conditions in the competition might have been to their advantage.

Mrs Foley-Smith said they had worked hard to reduce their fencing times and were second to complete the course by about four minutes at a cost of losing a point a minute.

The school’s second pair shaved more than one hour from their first training run to the competition, she said.

At Mystery Creek they had to dig in two 2.4m flat bottomed strainers 30m apart with breast blocks, then dig in six intermediate posts and a bungy gate, erect three wire electric and tension it all.

Repeat competitor Tom is in his final year at school and comes from a spraying contractor family, while Cullen is a year 12 student on a dairy farm. Cayden’s family is on a lifestyle block and Isabelle has been raised on a dairy farm.

In previous appearances the school had come fourth on debut followed last year by a team, including Tom, finishing runners-up and another third.

Mrs Foley-Smith said they were nervous before the final, but had prepared well for the event and spared no effort in their performance.

"Everyone in the school is really happy. We have a reasonably high profile through our Primary Industries Academy anyway, but they have been made quite a wee fuss of us and lots of kids have come up to talk to us."

The win might act as an incentive for other students to consider agriculture as a subject, but the academy already has a full roster with 41 year 11 to 13 students.

There will be little rest for the winning pair who compete soon in the Young Farmer’s national fencing final after winning the Aorangi competition, followed by the national secondary school fencing championship in Taupo in August.

Mrs Foley-Smith said the Fieldays event was a learning experience for the four fencers who also had to fulfil duties for the national fencing association.

A team of managers including Dan Douglass, Struan Moore and Quinn Foley-Smith helped them prepare for the event.

tim.cronshaw@alliedpress.co.nz