Young PH fencers shine in KL tournament

Young Filipino fencers won five golds as the Philippines collected 25 medals in the Southeast Asian Fencing Federation Junior and Cadet Championships at the Arena TSH OCM in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Philippines also won seven silvers and 13 bronzes, with Oscar del Castillo leading the campaign with two individual medals.

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The 16-year-old Del Castillo captured the cadet men’s epee gold with a 15-8 victory over Vietnam’s Do Dang Khoi on Friday, four days after taking silver in the junior men’s epee.

Del Castillo lost to Singapore’s Benjamin Lee, 15-11, in the junior final.

The Philippines won four more gold medals in team competition.

Willa Galvez, Victoria Ebdane and Jodie Tan captured the junior women’s foil title, while Ebdane and Tan joined Yuna Canlas and Hagia del Castillo to win the cadet women’s foil gold.

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Khiane Felipe, Vito Coching, Drake Chung and Matthew General ruled the junior men’s sabre team event, while Oscar del Castillo, Joaquin de Silos, Jacob Mayo and Li Jiashu won the cadet men’s epee team title.

Galvez also earned bronze in the junior women’s foil individual event after losing to eventual champion Suraya Rizzal of Malaysia, 15-8, in the semifinals. Galvez had edged Singapore’s Sita Naidu Maaravis, 15-14, in the quarterfinals.

Hagia del Castillo took silver in the cadet women’s foil after a 15-7 loss to Malaysia’s Oo Chin Yu in the final. Ebdane and Canlas earned bronze medals in the same event.

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Don Geronimo won bronze in cadet men’s epee, Jethro Chan finished with bronze in cadet men’s foil and Papina Torre took bronze in cadet women’s epee.