Epee fencing in Hesse has been in a long “sleeping beauty” state. Bernd Brückmann, the deputy head of the Olympic Training Center in Hesse, speaks of the untapped potential of this traditional sport. Today, however, epee fencing, which is an Olympic discipline, is in full swing. This is demonstrated by the national and international appearances of young athletes from the Rhine-Main area.
At this year’s Junior World Championships in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, three fencers from Eintracht Frankfurt, Cagla Aytekin, Eda Cevikol and Matilda Kunisch, formed the German U-17 women’s team in the épée category. The Eintracht quartet was completed by Levi Deng, who competed in the U-17 men’s épée.
It was “a mega-cool feeling” to represent Germany at a World Championship together with her club colleagues, says Matilda Kunisch, who won the German championship in her age group one week after the end of the World Cup tournament.
Cooperation between clubs
While the Eintracht fencers in the U17 age group are, according to Elke Jonas, sports director of the fencing department at SGE and president of the Hessian Fencing Association, the “strongest team in Germany”, those from the Offenbach Fencing Club are considered to be better in the age groups below. The eternally explosive rivalry between Frankfurt and Offenbach also existed in épée fencing – until a rethink came two years ago.
“It used to be more of a competition,” says Elke Jonas. “The way things were going back then, everyone involved reached their limits.” That’s why they realized “that the successes can be greater if you think outside the box and work together.” With the merger to form the Rhein-Main base – consisting of FC Offenbach and the fencing departments of Eintracht and Frankfurter Turnverein 1860 – the cooperation between the clubs has been strengthened since 2022.
Joint training sessions to improve the groups were an important step. They also support each other at tournaments today. In the past, young athletes’ changes of club in particular had caused conflicts between the clubs. As a basis for the cooperation, a nationwide contract was set in 2022 to refrain from – as Gudrun Bayer calls it – “poaching” talent.
Success for the future
A step that the president of FC Offenbach particularly welcomes. “You bring the kids up and then they go somewhere else. That’s always been the problem in the past,” she says, lamenting transfers like that of the later U-17 champion Kunisch from FC to Eintracht. She welcomes the development of the cooperation under the umbrella of the new base: “Now we can proudly say that the Rhine-Main base is currently winning the most medals,” says Bayer.
To ensure future success, the Rhine-Main base cooperates with the Hesse Olympic base. The young fencers can take advantage of services there such as physiotherapy, mental training or career advice. Matilda Kunisch finds mental training particularly “super important”. After all, fencing is a martial art, you have to trust in yourself a lot and be able to talk yourself into it. “You have to train that again and again – just like fencing,” says Kunisch. The mental state of the athletes is just as important for success as their physical state in competition.
In order to promote this, the Hessian Fencing Association is trying to further professionalize the trainer structures. So far, the trainers at the Rhine-Main base have been financed exclusively by the clubs. “Good and committed trainers are the most important thing for me. In all three clubs we have calm and good consistency in the positions, and we are very proud of that,” says Elke Jonas. Nevertheless, they also want to rely on association trainers in the future.
“At many other locations, the state association provides state trainers with the support of the local state sports association or other programs – and not just one, but sometimes three, four, five. In Hesse, we don’t have any at all to date,” says Bernd Brückmann. Getting a state trainer position is the next important step for Hessian fencing.
But not only the leaders at the Rhine-Main base, but above all its young athletes such as the U-17 World Championship women have set themselves big goals. “The Olympic Games would be great,” says Cagla Aytekin with regard to her future fencing career. For Eda Cevikol, there is no one clear goal: “I want to build on my achievements and continue to represent Germany at a European and World Championship after I graduate from high school,” she says.
And Matilda Kunisch? “I want to continue to improve and eventually compete at the top of the world,” says the German U-17 champion. She can also imagine making fencing a dual career. This is exactly how the Rhine-Main base wants to support fencers like Kunisch on and off the track in the future. With combined forces from Frankfurt and Offenbach.
