Nigeria Host First Fencing World Cup As Egypt And Saudi Arabia Wins Top Prizes

At the 2024 Men’s Junior Epee Fencing World Cup fencers from Egypt and Saudi Arabia dominated the rankings, winning the top prizes at the event hosted by Nigeria between December 14 and 15.

Nigeria hosted seven other countries with 39 fencers contending for the medals and rankings at the prestigious Charterhouse Lagos, this makes Nigeria the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to host a Fencing World Cup.

By the end of the championship Egypt won by beating Greece in the team event. Saudi Arabia settled for bronze.

Despite difficulties in the preliminary group which faced Egypt, Nigeria finished seventh in the team event.

Egypt’s player Shamel Youssef lead in the singles event by beating Saudi Arabia’s Abed Hassan to the gold and Egyptian duo Elsayed Mahmoud and Osama Eslam shared the bronze.

Ige Olumuyiwa was the highest Nigerian fencer in the singles event in No.27 who was edged out in the round of 32 by Greece’s Theodoropoulos Panagiotis.

Fashola oluwashemilore was ranked 31st and was beaten by eventual winner Shamel, former African cadet and national junior champion, Wisdom Okanlawon, finished in the 32nd position.

President of the Nigeria Fencing Federation, Adeyinka Samuel, said hosting the tournament was a win for Nigeria, despite the difficulties.

“We are grateful that we can host such a tournament. It has been challenging to secure and host it primarily in the area of finance,” Samuel said.

“Nigerian fencers have also been able to fence their hearts out and for us, we want to be able to host more competitions and improve our capacity in terms and that is why we are going into partnerships with Italian and British fencing. Once we can do that, we will be ready to host bigger tournaments and we can use that to spread fencing across Nigeria.”