Our Salle Paul Phoenix team put on a great event on Wednesday at Sumitomi Mitsui Banking Corporation’s UK headquarters in Liverpool Street, as part of their celebrating “International Day of Persons with Disabilities”.

Head Coach Oana Puiu delivered wheelchair fencing taster sessions with help from SPP fencers Bea Abram-Moore and Olympios Gougoulias, and we organised a panel of three Paralympians for a live Q&A which was streamed globally.

Oliver Lam-Watson and Dmitri Coutya of Team GB, and Clémence Delavoipière of Team France took part (along with our performance director, Jon Salfield), sharing their experiences in fencing and the challenges they’ve faced. Afterwards, Oliver and Jon put on an exciting wheelchair fencing exhibition match.

Audience members then had a chance to try Para-fencing using British Fencing’s innovative Swordseats.

Our thanks go to SMBC for putting on the event, and for the support from British Fencing.