Leah Tausan: Kindly wrote an article on her experience fencing for Australia at the Asian Junior and Cadet Championships.

I took up fencing near the end of 2007 as my father’s desperate attempt to get me to take interest in a sport.
I started fencing at VRI, but am now training at the State Fencing Centre.
My coach is Pieter Leeuwenburgh, and I currently train 4-5 days a week,
Including participation in the state epee squad. 

As preparation for the ‘Asian Junior and Cadet championships,’ I spent a week in January at Hong Kong training,
and participated in the Age group fencing Championships.
My results were 3^rd in Women’s epee Under 17 individual and 5^th in Women’s epee Under 20 individual.
The results are not that fantastic, as Hong Kong was a learning experience,
I took away information that I could work with for the ‘Asian Junior and Cadets fencing championships.’
I feel that if I did not go to Hong Kong I would have taken the same information back home from the AJCFC that I did from Hong Kong.

The AJCFC was held in Bangkok from the 4^th to the 13^th of March, I competed in both the Junior and Cadet category therefore staying
for the duration of the tour. I stayed with the Aussie Team in the royal Alexsandra hotel in
Bangkapi which was inconveniently located far away from the main city but was relatively close to the venue (if the traffic was good.)
The venue was at ‘Fashion Island’, a mall, which thankfully meant air-conditioning in the polluted, humid Thai weather.
AJCFC was the first international competition I have attended; the competition in Hong Kong being a local national competition.
My results for AJCFC were: 2^nd in the Cadet individual Epee, with my team coming 2^nd as well.
The Junior competition was tougher then the Cadet, with the girls being bigger, smarter and tougher; yet I came across some familiar faces from the Cadets.
I came 3^rd after being defeated in the semi-finals by Chu, a Hong Kong fencer who I’d previously defeated in the Cadet individual competition.  
My team came 5^th after once again coming up against Hong Kong, who by now we were all well acquainted with.  

It was a fantastic experience, being the ‘biggest’ competition I’ve ever competed in; I really enjoyed coming against new opponents/ fencing styles, etc.

AJCFC was my final overseas trip for 2011, as I need to focus on school work, etc, but I do plan to compete in the rest of the interstate competitions.
Next year I’ll be completing year 12 so there will be a decrease in my training to focus on VCE, planning on competing just enough
to allow me to qualify for the 2013 Asian Juniors and World Juniors.
Looking at the big picture it is my goal to qualify for the 2016 Olympics.

Thanks Leah..