Following the World Championships and detailed Programme and athlete reviews, in order to ensure the continued development of our number one men’s foilist, James Davis, an agreement has been reached with an American club for James to undertake his pre-season training with members of the USA fencing team.  James will continue to work with his personal coach Ziemek Wojciechowski.

James will remain a key member of the squad with his training and development programme led by the World Class Programme.  His progress, training and development will be monitored closely by the Team in London, to ensure the necessary gains are being made in addition to some services including medical supervision, psychology and strength and conditioning being provided remotely.

James will train in Lee Valley until the end of October when he will travel to America until the first international at the end of January.  Following Paris, James will then return to centralised training at Lee Valley for the remainder of the European season.  During this time a review will be undertaken as to how successful the arrangement has been and what changes or adaptations need to be made with a view to a further block prior to the Asian tour.

Speaking about the move Davis said “I am looking forward to training in the USA.  They have a young but very accomplished team and it will be great to learn and train with them.  I hope the time abroad will help me in achieving my goal to become one of the Worlds best foilists and reach that next step in my development.  I would like to thank Alex for her continued support, and look forward to training with the guys in January.”

Alex Newton, Performance Director said “At this critical time in James’s development we need to ensure that he has the best of everything to ensure he develops to his full potential, winning a medal in Rio.  Whilst we can provide the world-class support services and coaching, we really need to push James in training and have him in a daily training environment with the best fencers in the World.  The Americans currently have four athletes in the top ten with Chamley-Watson recently winning the World Championships.  James taking a year out of University and putting his studies on hold to pursue his dream is a really courageous move and shows the levels he will go to in order to become Olympic Champion.  As our Programme and athletes develop further then the training opportunities would be here at the national centre, but until that time we have to find any opportunity to fast track the development of athletes particularly when we are only Podium Potential, rather than Podium funded.”

Peter King, CEO said “I think this is a great move for James and something that will fast track his development.  Other sports have done this successfully in the past and we hope it will reap the rewards for James.”