There was success for forty-two-year-old Ruth Silverstone, of Narberth recently after she won the silver medal in the 32-strong women’s epee event at the British veterans’ championships in Manchester.

The format for these championships, which are open to all fencers over the age of 40, is two rounds of poules, in which groups of six or seven fence each other, followed by direct elimination.

This stage involves scoring 10 hits within 6 minutes with a 1-minute rest after 3 minutes.

Ruth started shakily and entered the direct elimination as 18th seed.

After an easy first fight, she came up against last year’s silver medallist and number two seed Sarah Budden, which turned into a tremendous battle before Silverstone clinched victory at 10-9.

She had a comfortable win over Jane Hutchison 10-4 to reach the semi-finals and then another hard bout with Denise Silk, from which she emerged victorious at 10-8.

The final against Britain’s most successful female epeeist and ten times senior national champion, Georgina Usher, was never in doubt, but Ruth, who fences for Celtic Sword Fencing Club in Swansea, managed to land four hits on her and was pleased to collect the silver medal.