Touche for students in fencing baptism

Some 60 student fencers from 13 renowned mainland and overseas universities, including Harvard and Columbia, competed with Hong Kong Baptist University students in a two-day friendly Hong Kong 2023 International Collegiate Fencing Invitational tournament on Thursday and Friday.

Around 60 students from 13 universities took part in the event, hosted by Baptist University, aimed at providing local fencers at the tertiary level with the opportunity to experience international-level competitions and develop world-class skills.

The International Collegiate Fencing Invitational Tournament was first held in South Korea in 2011 and has since been held in mainland cities as well as Singapore. This is the first time the event has been held in Hong Kong since the pandemic, and it was co-organized by the Absolute Development and Exchange Foundation in the United States.

Baptist had a 10-strong contingent, while the others came from Columbia, Duke, Harvard, Northwestern, Princeton, Stanford and Yale universities and the universities of North Carolina, Notre Dame and Pennsylvania from the United States, as well as Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance and Tsinghua University.

Fencers competed in individual matches of men's and women's foil, epee, and sabre at the Wai Hang Sports Centre in Baptist University. After the individual events concluded, a mixed team competition was held, where epeeists from different universities formed teams through random drawing.

Fencing is becoming more and more popular in Hong Kong, and local fencers have achieved remarkable results in recent years. In 2021, Edgar Cheung Ka-long won a gold medal in the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Over the past few weeks, the Hong Kong fencing delegation won three golds and one bronze medal at the World University Games held in Chengdu.

"We hope that in the future, Hong Kong fencers can make a name for themselves on the world stage," said university president Alexander Wai Ping-kong.

Wai also said that he believes the event can facilitate exchanges among fencers and provide students with a valuable chance to experience a culture different from their own.