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O’CONNELL WINS GOLD
Alex O’Connell has become Britain’s youngest
fencing world champion at the age of 16. At the junior/cadet
world championships in Linz, Austria, he won the cadet men’s
sabre title, crushing the Ukrainian, Anton Kuksa, 15-7 in
the final.
Alex had a bye into the L32 and was always ahead in his first
two fights, beating the Americans Ochocki 15-7 and Davidson
15-10. His toughest fight came in the quarter-finals against
the left-handed Russian, Matushkin. It was close all the way
with Alex 13-11 up at one point before receiving three hits
in succession, the last a disputed compound attack from Alex
that the referee saw as initially short. But he did not let
the decision upset him, drawing an attack and riposting to
equalise at 14-all. Then he attacked strongly to win against
a counter-attack.
In his semi-final against the fast and athletic Korean, Kang,
Alex was 5-8 down at the break and received tactical advice
from his coach, Mike Matthews. “I told him to make use
of the whole piste, stepping back quickly to upset Kang’s
distance and keep out of the way of his long attacks”,
said Mike. In the second half of the bout Alex went 14-11
up, winning 15-13.
The final was against one of the few cadets he had fenced
before, but Kuksa had beaten him 15-11 in their last meeting.
However, Alex knew that fight could easily have gone the other
way, so he was not intimidated. Mike had seen the Ukrainian
coach watching Alex in the semi-final and realised that he
would advise Kuksa to expect the same rhythm in the final.
“Instead, I told Alex to keep the fight within the 4-m
central zone and prevent his opponent using the whole piste.”
These tactics worked. “During the fight, other than
being 1-0 down, I got ahead early on and my confidence grew,”
said Alex. “At the break it was 8-5 to me, then he won
the next point to make it 8-6. Taking on board what Mike had
told me, I made sure that I took control of the fight rather
than reacting to him. So he was forced to react to me and
couldn't get into a rhythm. Probably the most successful hits
against him were making him fall short and then either riposting
straight away or chasing him down the piste.” He maintained
the pressure to clinch the world title with a 15-7 victory.
Alex trains for approximately 12-13 hours a week across 4
days at Brentwood School where he is a pupil. Mike Matthews,
who has coached him since he was 7 years old, said, “Alex
is the most self-motivated and determined fencer I have taught.”
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