Wheelchair fencing star Gilliver switches attention to epee following early sabre exit

A disappointed Piers Gilliver immediately turned his focus to the epee after a frustrating morning in the sabre for ParalympicsGB’s wheelchair fencing stars.

Gilliver was eliminated from the men’s sabre A at the round of 16 stage following a gruelling contest with China’s Li Hao at the Makuhari Messe in Tokyo.

The 26-year-old from Gloucester went down 15-12 to Li after emerging from Pool 3 thanks to victories over France’s Romain Noble (5-0) and Russian Paralympic Committee’s Nikita Nagaev (5-2), despite defeats to Artem Manko of Ukraine (5-2) and China’s Tian Jianquan (5-0).

Gilliver returns to the piste on Thursday for the epee discipline, where he’ll look to go one better than the silver medal he claimed in Rio five years ago.

“I am very disappointed with today because it was a tough draw in the elimination round after the pool matches didn’t really go as I’d hoped,” admitted Gilliver.

“I fought well, and I just managed to miss out, which is tough to take. Now I must put it behind me and get focused on tomorrow as the epee is my stronger event.

“I am confident I can put in a good performance.”

It was also a difficult morning for Gemma Collis-McCann, who was eliminated from the women’s sabre A following four consecutive defeats in Pool 3.

The 28-year-old from Manchester – fencing at her third Paralympic Games – lost 5-1 in her opener against Hungary’s Eva Andrea Hajmasi before falling to Poland’s Marta Fidrych and Ukraine’s Nataliia Morkvych by the same scoreline.

Collis-McCann put in her best performance of the morning against Italy’s Ionela Andreea Mogos in a tight 5-4 loss, but it wasn’t enough for her to advance to the knockout stages.

However, much like Gilliver, she will return to the Makuhari Messe to compete in a discipline she prefers on Thursday – the women’s individual epee.

She said: “I am disappointed but tomorrow is my stronger event, so I need to re-focus now.

“I didn’t have the trust in myself to attack, which is my strength, but I improved in the last fight and actually thought I’d got that one.

“I had changed the weapon in this cycle, so I hadn’t had a lot of time, and Paris was probably a more realistic aim for the sabre.

“I had put in some really solid work and had made some big improvements, but I didn’t really handle the mental side of things in the first two fights.”