Women triplets at “Le Tournoi des Flandres”: mental strength to keep going
Three female teams met at the “Tournoi des Flandres”, in France: from UK, France and the Netherlands. They show a quick progress and gain strength fast! That’s why we decided to talk with representatives of women’s triplets about their vision of growing the teams in HMB on the Flanders’ example.
“Swords of Cygnus” team from UK took a silver at Flanders. Girls have been training hard together and now they have what to show in the list. The captain Sofie Maceanruig told: “Every round we go into the lists with the confidence that the women by our side want to win with the same passion. A lot of thanks to our mercenaries Ira Bolshakova, Kirsty Langley and Julie Codina! Having the opportunity to fight alongside you all was the highlight of this tournament for us. We hope it will be the first of many!”
“Swords of Cygnus” has toured internationally as a fresh UK team for the past year, so it has grown and made an incredible progress taking bronze, silver and gold medals from most categories across Europe.
French team “Les Pucelles” won the gold medal on “Le Tournoi des Flandres”. Marjolaine Martin is very proud of her team: “It was the very first tournament for some of our fighters, and they made a very good impression on everyone. Our beginners have the mental strength to keep going anyway. This is a very positive tendency because the wish is very important in this sport. Our victory reinforces their assurance and strengthened the team spirit, it’s going to be more difficult to defeat us next time!”
During the tournament there also were women’s profights and the “Longsword” duel category. For Marjolaine that was the first time she tried a profight, and she told, it was as hard as expected. “Team fights are so much easier! But it was a very good experience!”, – she resumed.
The Netherlands presented a female buhurt-team “Kenau” for the first time ever. Esther Veldstra told: “Last year, I was the only female in armour in the Netherlands, this year I was joined by Denise Scheltinga who is an amazingly talented fighter, and now these other amazing ladies, Nikki Beeftink and Nathalie Steegs.
This was our first tournament as a full Dutch women’s buhurt team. There were two fighters who have never been in the list, and we were there to test the waters. Before you can grow skills, you must have a team first and this year we finally have a team.
We did not win any fights, but I was very excited to take the list with these amazing women for the first time. From here we grew and learned”.
It was a big pleasure to talk about full-contact fights in armor with such a charming women. And HMBIA News wishes each of them personally and to their team bright combats and resounding victories!
HMBIA News
