KUALA LUMPUR-BOUND Willa Liana Galvez gave herself a good sendoff, after she and teammate Nicol Amethyst Canlas topped their respective events in the final day of competition of the Republic Fencing’s Young Musketeers Series 2022 on Saturday at the RF club in P. Tuason, Quezon City.
The 11-year-old Galvez turned back Precious Sison of Calle de Armas, 6-1, in the finals of Under-12 women’s foil, for her first-ever gold medal in the sport.
Galvez, a grade 6 student of University of the East, also got past Merida Amber Diaz, also of CF, in the semifinals.
Diaz settled for the bronze medal together with Bobby Dime of RF.
The top-seeded Galvez first prevailed over Diaz in the semifinals, 10-4, while no. 3 Sison upset the second seeded Dime, 3-2.
Canlas, the daughter of former national coach Amatov Canlas, won over fellow CF fencer Jaden Divinagracia in taking the U-12 women’s sabre crown.
Divinagracia settled with a silver medal, while Kirsten Shanelle “Shy” Catantan of CF and Baley Olayres took bronze medals.
Other CF winners were Eyce Olarte, silver medalist in the U-12 men’s sabre, along with Ralph Xenen Cuenca and Enrico Joaquin Ronsayro, who went home with the bronze.
Young and up-and-coming fencers from Canlas Fencing, numbering more than 60 athletes, are set to join in the Malaysia Minime Competition on December 1 to 4 in Kuala Lumpur.
Galvez had her first international outing in Singapore, where she went 3-2 in pool matches, to gain entry into the Round of 32.
After that, Willa lost in the quarterfinals, 5-19 to no. 6 Nur Radzuan Mohd of Malaysia to place 32nd out of 41 fencers in the under-14 event.
It was her first time to compete in the under-14 matches of any local or international event, and went 0-6 in the pool ranked 37th in direct eliminations.
From there, Willa lost in the Round of 32 to no. 5 Maaravis Naidu Sita of Singapore, who took it at 15-5.
