The FIE Training Camp and the Cadet and Junior World Championships carried special significance this year, coming just a few months ahead of the Rio Olympics where the young athletes’ idols will be battling it out for Olympic medals.

“The FIE Training Camp is a place where athletes come not only to hone their skills, but also to get the drive and inspiration they need to raise their game to a whole new level,” said Krisztián Kulcsár, FIE Sporting Director who is responsible for the program. “Add to this the ‘Olympic effect’ of motivation and we have the perfect recipe for success.”

The locations for the Training Camp, selected by the FIE and split by weapon, were Bourges itself for sabre fencers; and the Fencing Club Melun Val de Seine, where foilists and épéeists gathered.

Melun Val de Seine was the venue for a Coaching Advancement Program last year that was run in collaboration with the FIE following the center’s affiliation to the Club Movement Initiative network. The club boasts impressive fencing facilities but it was not only about the infrastructure: the foil training camp was led by renowned fencing masters Patrice Lhôtellier and Jean-Noël Hautefaye. They were joined by Ukrainians Natalia Conrad and Dmitry Rejzlin, who tended to the epee fencers. In Bourges, meanwhile, Gennady Tyshler, the President of