Our Favourite Fencer Husayn Rosowsky is Selected for the Olympics

Husayn Rosowsky has been selected to represent Britain in the Men’s Foil Individual and Team events.  Husayn has had a very successful year so far winning the British Senior Championships and the Leon Paul International, also over the last year he has competed in the Olympic test event, The World Student Games in China where he came 6^th , eventually going out 15-6 to Lei who was World number 1 at the time (is Lei genuinely a student? Hard to believe) and recently fenced in Senior A Grade competitions in Japan, Korea, Russia, in Korea he finished 16^th knocking out the World Number 4 Choi.  The process of selection might appear complicated and drawn out to many, especially with appeals and the controversy surrounding the Women’s Sabre selection.  Those of us who have known of the selections have had a job restraining our celebrations over Husayn’s selection over the past few weeks until the official announcement, especially as there has been so much speculation over who might get the call, most interestingly perhaps on the ‘Fencing Forum‘ ‘Guess the Wild Cards’ thread.  Where there are host Nation wild cards as a basis of selection, these difficulties are I think inevitable, I am sure many other sports will have these difficulties.  It is considered that Men’s Foil provides the best prospect of a medal for British fencing and there have been a number of strong contenders for an Olympic place in Men’s Foil, I feel we have a very strong team with the experience of Richard and the energy, enthusiasm and raw talent of James and Husayn.  My impression has been that Husayn has remained calm and relaxed about the whole process and concentrated on just producing results.  He will compete alongside Richard Kruse, James Davis and Laurence Halsted, Laurence takes the place as reserve for the team event.  Apart from training together, Husayn and James share a house with other student friends.  Other important events for Husayn in the near future are Cuba and the European Championships.

Husayn says about his selection “It is a great honour to be selected for the London 2012 Olympics. The opportunity to compete in front of a home crowd will make a massive difference to our chances. I’m not here just to make up the numbers, I fence because I want to win and there’s no bigger prize than an Olympic medal.”

Well, I have got my Olympic tickets and I know that all the Sheffield and Yorkshire fencers will be behind Husayn and many of us will be there to cheer him on.  Go Husayn!!!