Robyn Cando’s fencing for the 2008-09 season

A year after entering the competitive scene in fencing, Robyn Cando has made leaps and bounds in the sport and is now ranked fourth in Canada in the Under-15 age group. This accomplishment was achieved after winning the bronze medal in the recently concluded 2009 National Junior-Cadet Fencing Championships in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan last June. Robyn who fences sabre (one of the three weapons in fencing) also placed 6th in the Cadet (Under-17) and 12th in the Junior (Under-20) age groups in the same tournament.

Fourteen year old Robyn has been involved in the sport for four years now and started with foil fencing at Kyle Centre in Port Moody. It was only in the summer of 2008 did she opted to shift to sabre fencing after she convinced her father to train her. Israel Cando, who was a former national champion and a collegiate sabre coach in the Philippines, only agreed to teach and coach her after Robyn promised to seriously train in the sport.

Since then, Robyn has left her mark in the sport. During her first tournament, she won a silver medal at the Duncan Mix-Youth Sabre Tournament in Vancouver Island beating every male and female participant, and losing only to the eventual gold medallist who was four inches taller than her.
This extraordinary feat was again repeated at the 2009 BC Fencing Championships after she won the bronze medal in the Under-15 age group where the event was organized as a mix-youth. Robyn was again the only girl in the medal podium.

Robyn’s fencing activities are not limited in Canada. During the 2008-09 fencing season, Robyn participated in two US Fencing Association- sanctioned youth tournaments in Washington State.
During the second-leg of the USFA-Regional Youth Circuit in Bellevue, Robyn won the silver medal in Y14 (Under-15) Girls Sabre event besting several fencers from the prestigious Oregon Fencing Alliance – the same fencing club where the current Olympic and World Champion trains.

Robyn won the silver medal again at the fourth-leg of the USFA-RYC, losing only to the number-one ranked female sabre fencer in Y14 age group in the US Northwest Pacific region.

Because of the points she received in the provincial and national level, Robyn earned a spot in the group of fencers selected to represent Canada in the 2009 Carl Schwende Junior World Cup to be held in Montreal. The Junior World Cup is a circuit of tournaments around the world that are run by the Federation Internationale d’Escrime to determine the rankings of youth fencers around the globe. This will be the first time Robyn will be wearing the national colours for Canada and she did it in her first year of competitive fencing.

Other than fencing, Robyn is also enjoying a higher -than-average grades at the Riverside Secondary School in Port Coquitlam where she is enrolled as a French Immersion student. She is also learning to play the violin at Tom Lee School of Music and is a responsible sister to younger brother Chino.
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