It was a difficult trip for fencers Myles Ashforth and Maia Henderson-Roe when they competed for England in Poland.

The two Colchester and District Fencing Club members competed for the England Epee under-15 squad in Wroclaw.

Ashforth, the youngest member of the boys’ squad, fenced in the under-13 category had an outstanding set of poule fights against fencers from Estonia, Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic.

He was seeded first into the direct eliminations.

He received a bye for the first round of DEs and faced the Polish 64th seed.

The excessive wait from the poules to DE did him no favours, however, nor did the shorter European fight times and end score.

Ashforth rushed into his fight giving his opponent the chance to score against him early on.

He was unable to recover in time and lost 12-9, finishing the competition 33rd out of 150 fencers.

Maia Henderson-Roe competed in the under-15 girls, one of the youngest girls in that age group.

Following the poules she was ranked 83rd into the direct eliminations.

Henderson-Roe faced the 46th seed from Belarus, the fight was evenly matched in the first period of the bout.

The Colchester fencer landed several nicely-placed wrist hits, but in the second stage of the match her opponent pulled ahead and increased her lead in the final stage.

Henderson-Roe was defeated 15-9, to finish the competiton 87th from 152 fencers overall.

The senior CADS fencers entered the Invicta Open with the ladies faring much better than the men in this popular competition.

Magdelena Lewandowska won the silver medal in the women’s foil, with Elizabeth Beaver coming a creditable ninth place.

In the women’s epee, Heather Jarrold earned a bronze, Megan Redding a comendable eighth place and Gabriella Ortega 15th.

In the men’s epee Wayne Bryan had the best result at 18th place, GB cadet Noah Cook fenced well above his age group for 46th and novice Thomas Van Der Staaij was placed 61st.