Without missing a beat, the Varsity Blues fencing team jumped into the second half of the 2009-10 season with a team competition at Carleton University in Ottawa. Despite the December hiatus, all nine teams were in top form and came away with an impressive five medals.

On Saturday, both men’s sabre teams fought their way to the top. The Blues team consisting of Akash Toprani (Vancouver), Curtis Wang (Toronto), Sandeep Kemphavi and Bram Locknick were claimed the silver medal , while the alumni team of Eric Ng, Chacho Rodriguez, Sukveer Matharu and Sasha Zuckerman earned bronze.

Varsity’s men’s foil team “A”, featuring Kamil Karbonowski (Milton, Ont.), Kyle Chan (Hong Kong) and newcomer Jason Qian (London, Ont.), as well as the women’s epée team of the 2009 OUA silver medalist Joanne Ko (Winterton, Nfld.), first-year student Amber Wavryk of Scarborough, Ont., and Montreal native Julia Barette, both captured gold in their respective events.

Sunday was just as fast-paced as the women’s sabre team, featuring OUA Champion Alison Doyle, Jo Jo Leung, Kristina Han and Stefania Spano, also walked away with a gold medal.

Such a fantastic showing for the U of T is on par with its standard of excellence in fencing and promises an excellent result at the OUA championships in February.

The Blues enter the OUA qualifying tournament, Jan. 30-31 at McMaster University, with some high expectations to meet. However, with the strong contingent of athletes and excellent coaching, the Blue and White are bound to come out on top.


Full results:

Men’s Foil:             Team A – 1st, Team B – 14th

Women’s Foil:      7th

Men’s Epee:          Team A – 13th, Team B – 15th

Women’s Epee:   1st

Men’s Sabre:         Team A – 3rd, Team B – 2nd

Women’s Sabre:  1st