‘Qualified for the FIE and NOC’ (FIE Blog Bas Verwijlen)

Hi there fencing lovers!

This is my first post for my personal FIE blog. I am very happy to tell everyone that I am qualified for my second Olympic games. Due to my silver medal at the European championships and my silver medal at the World championships I was pretty sure of competing in the 2012 London Olympics…..for the FIE. But, in my own country I was not….It took some time to explain this to the other epee fencers who are aiming at the olympics. For my National Olympic Committee I had to do one top-8 result in 2011 and one top-16 in 2012 all at a pre-selected competition. So in 2011 I had my top-8 result at the Tallinn worldcup (3th place) and in 2012 I finished 3th in the Qatar Grand Prix. Actually after my match against Egyptian Fayez I was sure of competing in London! A lot of pressure dropped from my shoulders and my dad’s Some fencers asked me why I was so exited after winning my table-32 match against Fayez…that’s why.

After returning home some people told me I could be the new #1 on the FIE worldranking. I waited until monday and saw the updated ranking……it was true! Very proud to be the first Dutch fencer ever to be ranked #1 on the FIE worldranking for some weeks.

By now, the Italian Worldchampion Paolo Pizzo catched up on me because of his good result at the 2012 Tallinn worldcup. I am #2 now on the FIE ranking. But we will see after the Paris worldcup next weekend This will be the last competition that counts for the olympic qualifing and will be very exited and stressful for some fencers…..

Bas Verwijlen