Ben Peggs - DIARY

JULY 2008

New 2008/2009 Season
The new 2008/2009 fencing season kicked off with the Men's Foil Senior National Championship held at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield last weekend 12th July. Ben made a great start to the season with his best ever Senior Nationals result finishing 10th. This will move him for the first time into the top ten senior foil fencers in Great Britain with a National ranking of 10th as well, all this at the grand old age of seventeen. Ben was over the moon with this result, despite being disappointed not to have made it further into the last eight or further. He won every fight on the day with the exception of the last direct eliminator which saw him go out. Ben's best Senior Nationals result to date prior to this was a 23rd.

2007/2008 Seasonal Summary
Ben left school in June 2007 to focus on fencing full time. During the 2007/2008 season he focused relentlessly on this objective, training five days a week mainly in London with his coach Ziemek Wojciechowski (Thank you Ziemek). He competed in twenty six competitions, half of them Internationals, including ten rounds of the World Junior A Grade Series and the balance being the top National event.

During the season his Junior International ranking went up from 468th to 69th in the world. This has just improved still further 45th for the start of the new season with the older fencers dropping out. At a National level Ben's Senior Ranking went up from 28th to 11th and at a Junior National level from 13th to 9th.

International Summary
•          Represented Great Britain fourteen times
•          Best result was 7th in the Polish round of the World Junior A Series
•          Plus five last 32’s including 26th at the European U23 Championships

National Summary
•        Competed in the nine strongest National Men’s open events and was a last eight finalist on seven occasions. Also competed in the British Youth Championships, Junior and Senior National Championships.
•     Best results were 1st Slough, 1st Shropshire, 2nd Nottingham, 2nd Kent, 7th Bristol, 8th Essex, 8th Birmingham and 3rd British Youth Championships

Sponsorship
Ben and I would like to especially thank all of his sponsors for there help in the 2007/2008 season, without this he would not have been able to have had the success he has and make the significant progress. Therefore a special thanks go to onHotels.com (Mark and the team), Fruitful Developments Ltd and a well known but anonymous fencing equipment manufacturer.

MAY 2008

Ben's performance in May's European U23 Fencing Championships in Monza Italy. Ben was part of the British three man foil squad selected to take part in these championships. He finished 26th and was the highest placed British fencer in the foil competition. What makes this an even more significant result, was that he was not only the youngest member of the British squad, but also the youngest foilist in the whole competition. Over half of the entries were also Senior age group fencers i.e. older the twenty. As Ben is still only seventeen and a half this was a great result and one he was over the moon about.

On the way to this result he won three of his pool fights and lost the other three, see details below. Also in his pool was Martino Minuto, the current World Junior No1. He was ranked 25th after the pool fights and had a bye into the last thirty two. In his last thirty two direct elimination fight he faced Bence Szeki of Hungary who beat him 15:7. Bence is a former World Junior Cadet Champion and he went on to finish 13th on the day.

Wins
Boris Zorc (Germany) 5:4
Pavol Celler (Slovakia) 5:3
Ivan Malai (Maldova) 5:4
Losses
Martin Minuto (Italy) 1:5 (Current World Junior Series U20 No1) 
Volodymyr Koltygo (Ukrain) 2:5
Igor Zapozdaev (Russia) 3:5

22nd March 2008 Birmingham International Men's foil Senior Open

After travelling to Birmingham the evening before the competition, we arrived at Birmingham University were Ben sign in by the 9.00 am deadline. The competition kicked off at 9.30 am with the pools, unfortunately Ben made an uncharacteristic slip and lost one of his pool fight. It was his first one and I think he still had some sleep in his eyes. This unfortunately meant that he was ranked 23rd out of 127 entries on the day. This was going to make the rest of the day more difficult than it would have been if he had won all his fights. In the afternoon the competition moved into the direct elimination phase. He again cruised through the DE's up until his last eight fight which he lost giving him a final ranking on the day of 8th.

Although Ben was disappointed to finish 8th as he wanted more from the day, I need to put this into perspective. The Birmingham International Senior foil fencing competition is one of the six strongest competition held Nationally in the UK each season. Out of these six competition this season, Ben has won one and finished in the top eight on three other occasions. In my view this is an outstanding achievement at just seventeen and one that has seen Ben move up the Men's National Senior foil fencing ranking from 28th at the start of the season to 11th as the season draws to a close.

We are off to Copenhagen this weekend for the Men's FIE Senior Satellite event on Saturday and a Nordic Junior event on Sunday. We will as always let you know how things go. Thanks as ever to all of Ben's sponsors and Supports (hotelsrus.com, Fruitful Developments, British fencing, Hampshire/Basingstoke Council, The Basingstoke Sports Centre and Basingstoke Gazette)

16th March 2008 Invicta Men's foil Senior Open

On Sunday morning we travelled to Canterbury in Kent for the Invicta Open held at the University Sports Centre. Ben made a good start to the competition winning all of his pool fights despite having a number of awkward fencers in it. He was ranked sixth after the pools out of eighty one entries. He cruised through the DE's up until the final which he unfortunately lost and hence finished 2nd on the day.

3rd March 2008 Lunch of Get Active Campaign by SPAA (Sports & Physical Activity Alliance) at Brighton Hill Community College Basingstoke

During his enforced rest period Ben made good use of his time. In response to an invitation from Basingstoke Gazette, Ben attended an indoor inter Basingstoke Schools Athletics event at which SPAA launched its get active campaign in Basingstoke. The Campaign is designed to get more and more people in Basingstoke to get active and try out different sports. SPAA have set some very ambitious targets for the number of people they want to take part in regular activity in the town. Ben was invited as a local sporting star to join Karen Atkinson the vice captain of the England Netball Team to meet and inspire the young kids during the event. Ben was interview by the Basingstoke Gazette's video news group and you can see his short interview at the following URL http://www.basingstokegazette.co.uk/news/video/gazettevideo/index.var.23308.b.0.php under the following heading

Get Active Week launched
Children help to launch keep fit campaign.
Mon 10 Mar 08

• Play video
• Article

1st March 2008 Nottingham Men's foil Senior open

Following the sports award dinner on the Friday evening, Ben and I made the dash to Nottingham on the Saturday morning for him to compete in the Nottingham Men's foil Senior Open competition. Despite a mild tickly cough which turned out to be a chest infection, a shoulder injury from which he had special exercises to sort out and tended he strained in one of his pool fights on the day, I am please to report he finished second. He was disappointed with this as he finished first at the same event last year, but given the circumstances this was a good result. I am please to say that after a good weeks rest, continuation of the special exercises for his shoulder and a course of Antibiotics, all is well and he is again fighting fit.

29th February 2008 Basingstoke Sports Awards

Annually Basingstoke and Dean Borough Council set aside a small fund to support local sports people. As part of the selection process to receive money from this fund, the council along with Basingstoke Gazette also gives out at an annual award dinner, prizes for top sports people in a number of different categories. I am pleased to let you all know that Ben has for the second year running won the Junior Sportsman of the Year award. He also received a cheque for £120 to go towards his training and competition costs. As you can imagine Ben was over the moon to receive the award for the second time. Below I have pasted the section from the Basingstoke Gazette reporting his success.

 

26th February 2008 Launch of Lottery Bingo

Ben was asked by British/English fencing to represent his sport at the recent launch of the Lottery's new Bingo game. This new game is going to generate money for sport in the UK and as such this event held in Trafalgar Square was totally sports focused. Ben was one of a number of top sports people who took part. The event was focused around a photo shoot with the shows hosts and the mascot. I have enclosed two photo's below from the day, the first is Ben with Joe Pasquarle the show host and and the second with Mr Bing the mascot. More photos can be seen at the following URL:

http://www.ccpr.org.uk/ourservices/events/ccprevents/bingolottoimages.htm

 

 

<< back