DEVELOPMENT OF A WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP DOUBLES COMPETITION AT FIELDAYS
New Zealand Fencing Competitions (NZFC) has been working over the past 3 – 4 years on the development of an international Doubles Fencing Championship Competition, proposed to be held within the Fieldays Fencing Competitions.
The concept has been driven by a strong emphasis on industry best practice that the New Zealand fencing competition scene has embraced over the past 50 years.
As part of the planning, NZFC have built up relationships with several overseas competitions, working towards their competition winners competing in a future World Fencing championship, and the development of a winner’s exchange program whereby the Fieldays Silver Spades winners receive a prize of competing on a rotational basis each year in one of the overseas competitions.
NZFC has developed relationships with English and U.S. fencing competitions and are in discussions with other countries.
Currently, NZFC are using the Fieldays Silver Spades Doubles Championship to host these overseas winning teams into the competitions.
In 2023 the winners of the U.K Tornado Fencing competition at Malvern, Mark Evans and Nic Quan, competed in the Fieldays Silver Spades. They were very well received by the NZ fencing competitor’s community.
This is a biannual competition and this year’s winners, as part of their first-place prize package, will receive a trip to NZ to compete in the Fieldays Silver Spades in 2025, which is sponsored by the competition sponsors.
In 2024 the winners of the U.S Platinum Strainer Doubles Championship at the East Coast Fencing Rivalry, Alex Masser and Jason Day will be coming to NZ and competing in the Fieldays Silver Spades as part of their sponsored prize package.
In July 2024, the winners of the 2023 Fieldays Silver Spades doubles championship – Jeff Joines and Mark Lambert will travel to the UK and compete in the Tornado Fencing competition on July 30th at Malvern. The following day they will attend a AFI (Association of Fencing Industries) Fencing Field Day. Along the way, over the two weeks they are in the U.K, they will be meeting U.K Fencing Contractors and doing factory tours.
Jeff Joines is from the Lower North Island and runs Jeff Joines Fencing. Mark Lambert is also from this region and runs Agri Fencing and Development. Both are successful fencing contracting businesses and are highly competitive at both national and regional levels, being both Golden Pliers by WIREMARK, and Fieldays Silver Spades finalists for a number of years.
