A conveyancer at a Carlisle law firm will represent Wales in an international fencing tournament next week.
Wednesday Jones, who works at Wragg Mark-Bell Solicitors, is competing at the 2022 Veterans’ Commonwealth Fencing Championships in London.
She will be fencing for Wales in the individual Veterans’ Women’s Sabre on Monday August 15 and in the Veterans’ Women’s Sabre Team event on Thursday August 18, having only returned to the sport in 2021 after five years off due to injury.
The championships are a competition run in the same year as the Commonwealth Games for sports no longer part of the main games.
Wednesday took up fencing in 2005 by accident – she meant to attend an archery class but went on the wrong night.
Having tried foil and epee, she eventually settled on sabre, the fastest of the three forms of fencing, where the whole blade is used for scoring points.
From 2005 to 2007 she fenced in open competitions and won a few medals and trophies.
After qualifying in 2007, she joined the Welsh Veterans, was the Welsh number one for eight years; fencing in both open and veterans’ competitions including the Veterans’ Commonwealth Fencing Competition in Jersey in 2009, when she was part of the women’s sabre team which won silver, and again at Largs in 2014.
Injuries stopped her competing from 2015, a break which latterly coincided with the pandemic.
Restored to fitness and moving south to High Wycombe to be closer to her family last year, she took up fencing again and won bronze at the Welsh Nationals last September.
For the championships at the University of London Sports Dock next week, Wednesday will be cheered on by her son and six-month-old grandson.
But she has a new perspective on taking part in competitions after returning to the sport.
She says: “I cannot be as competitive as I used to be because I’m not practising as often. Therefore, what I’m getting out of fencing now is fun and comradeship. That has made me feel a lot better about fencing than I used to in the past.
“It’s fun now whereas in the past I think I was relieved to give up fencing because it had become so consuming for me that if I didn’t win something I would be upset.
“My goals for the individual competition are to meet new people and have some fun doing a sport that I love. If I score a few points and win a match that would be nice, but I’m not banking on it.
“My goal for the team competition is to support the other members and do as well as I can possibly do for the team.”
She adds: “All my dad’s side of the family were Welsh. My dad never knew that I fenced because he died before I started. I think he would have been really tickled that I was fencing for Wales. It would have made him laugh no end, because he loved his Welsh roots.”
