Flanders spars at Junior Olympics

This past weekend in Denver, Colo., the country's elite under-20 fencers gathered to compete in the prestigious Junior Olympic tournament. While competing in a tournament containing the word "Olympic" might only exist in the dreams of some, freshman foil Clayton Flanders lived out that dream last weekend while facing the country's stiffest competition.

Flanders' road to Junior Olympic competition started when he was still in elementary school. He began fencing at the age of 12 at the Boston Fencing Club in Massachusetts. Like most younger brothers, Flanders was enthralled with the activities of his older brother, Christian. So when Christian began to fence, it was only a year before Clayton decided to join him at the club.

In order to speed up the learning process, Flanders started to enter national competitions shortly after picking up the sport.

"After six months of fencing, I went to my first national event, summer nationals," said Flanders. "I did well enough to make the point standings in my age group."

Since first breaking onto the national radar, Flanders has spent time on and off the national point standings.

When it was time to choose which college to attend, Flanders followed another member of his Boston Fencing Club team, Princeton senior foil Alejandro Bras.

"Alejandro is someone that I highly respect and admire as a fencer," said Flanders, "and I knew how much he was enjoying his time here."

After going on a tour of the campus and meeting with the coach, Flanders decided Princeton was the place to continue his fencing career.

This past summer, Flanders competed in the U. S. Summer National Fencing Tournament. At the end of the tournament, he finished 18th in the U-20 event, earning automatic qualification for the Junior Olympic tournament this past weekend.

Based on previous tournament finishes and national match records, Flanders began the weekend seeded at 62nd out of 218 entries in the junior foil division.

He was then put into a pool of six other fencers to begin the round-robin segment of the tournament. At Junior Olympic meets, the tournament directors divide the field up into groups of seven fencers, with each group having equal difficulty based on initial seedings.

Flanders began the round-robin on a positive note, defeating his first opponent. In his next bout, he had his work cut out for him as his next opponent was ranked 8th overall.

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But Flanders fought hard, only losing by one point, 5-4. He concluded the initial portion of the tournament by splitting the next four bouts and finishing with a record of 3-3.

After the round-robin round, tournament directors tallied each fencer's wins and losses and reseeded the field based on the competition so far. Once the field was reseeded, the direct elimination portion of the tournament began. At this point, Flanders was reseeded as 95th overall and knew that a single loss would end his competition.

He won his first bout to make it to the round of 128. Next up, he faced fencer Nickolas Kubic in a test of wills. Flanders and Kubic were even initially with 3 points a piece, but Kubic pulled away to make the score 8-5.

Undaunted, Flanders mounted a tremendous comeback, eventually defeating Kubic, 15-11, to make the round of 64. Flanders' next direct elimination bout was against Enzo Castellani, a fencer ranked 9th in the U-20 point standings. Unfortunately for Flanders, this would be his last bout of the day, as he was defeated by Castellani, who would finish the tournament in 3rd place.

Flanders finished the tournament at 63rd overall, just about equal to his initial seeding.

"I was a little disappointed in my results for Junior Olympics and had hoped to finish much higher than my initial seeding," Flanders said. "I wasn't too surprised about my result, however, having just fenced in the Ivies South last weekend, I was still tired mentally and physically."

While Flanders might have been frustrated at not finishing higher, he can still take many positives away from the Junior Olympic tournament experience.

"Overall, the experience was excellent, and I'm glad I had a chance to compete with some of the top fencers in the nation."

Flanders won't have much time to reflect on this past weekend's bouts though, as the men's fencing team heads to Cambridge, Mass. this upcoming weekend to take on the Ivy "North" Competition and build on their Ivy "South" success.