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Swordsman's winning return

Posted by vm64 at Feb 02, 2011 04:25 PM |
Congratulations to our Economics student Gaurav Gupta for becoming India’s champion in foil fencing.
Swordsman's winning return

Gaurav Gupta

Gaurav participated in the XXI Indian Senior National Fencing Championships, which took place in Hyderabad on the southeastern coast of India over 6–19 January 2011.

He has previously been India’s number one in 2009 but in 2010 achieved a still respectable second place. In the finals this year, he faced Vijay Kumar once again but with a different outcome and returned to the number one spot.

This qualifies him for the Junior and Senior World Championships later this year and takes him closer to his Olympic dream. 

Inspired by his achievement, Gaurav is determined to push harder:

Winning the Championships was a big confidence boost for me and a great way to start the new year. Fencing in India is improving every year and this year’s competition was the hardest. I was facing a tough opponent who beat me last year, so to beat him this year to become India’s Champion motivates me to train harder and perfect my skills. I want to transfer my success to quality for the Olympics and perform well in all my upcoming international events. I’m grateful to the continued University support for helping me juggle my training and studies. 

Below is the video of Gaurav and Vijay battling it out in the finals.

Incidentally, Gaurav is not the first successful fencer associated with the University of Leicester. Edgar, Lord Adrian, who was our very first Chancellor from 1957 through to 1971, was also a dab-hand with a sword in his younger days. The archives of the National Fencing Museum reveal that he won the Public Schools Foil Championship in 1908 and went on to represent Cambridge in the inter-university competition of 1912.

 

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