It is a proud moment for India as India’s first fencer to represent India in the Olympics, CA Bhavani Devi wins the first two rounds of competition, thus becoming the first Indian fencer to win India’s first ever fencing match in Olympic. She has definitely made a historic Olympic debut.
Bhavani Devi had complete control over the women’s sabre individual table of 64 bouts and thus defeated Nadia Ben Azizi of Tunisia by 15-3 in just 6 minutes and 14 seconds. The official FIE rank of Bhawani is 42 while Nadia was ranked 384. Bhavani Devi was fully concentrated and did not let her opponent win over the first two rounds. She fought with precision, and Nadiya was not able to hold much in the second half too. She had a competition against the world number 3, Manon Brunet of France, but she lost the game.
CA Bhavani Devi lasted two rounds at the games fighting seriously but at the last round when she competed with Manon brunet she lost. Although she started her campaign by defeating Azizi by 15-3, she next had a hard time competing with world number 3 Manon brunet in which she lost by 7-15.
On the loss, she said that she tried her level best but she was not able to defeat her opponent. Bhavani also is hoping to come back stronger and more successful at the next Olympics. According to her, she made some of the mistakes while fighting against Brunet. She said that she was not able to fence well. But she was feeling kinda happy as she got a chance to fight one of the top fencers in the world.
According to her she played really well in the opening round and defeated Azizi, but in the third and the final round, Brunet remained untroubled and the game was on for 9 minutes and 48 seconds.
In one of her interviews with ‘Humans of Bombay’ after the match, she also shared her journey of becoming a fencer. She said that she first chose to fence when she was at school and she also said that no one used to choose to fence but as it was different she wanted to try it. It became her passion and her mom and dad tried their best to fulfill Bhavani’s dreams. She further said that to buy her first fencing kit home sold jewelry for Rs.6000. Her parents used to work so hard at different officers to find sponsors for her training. Later she was supported by a coach and the coach agreed to train her. She said that even after finding a coach she was not able to take up all the expenses and the family was also struggling a little bit to do so. Later for her expenses, she wrote a letter to late CM Jayalalitha and she offered Bhavani financial support.
And because of the support she later thanked late Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalitha for her support. She also thanked the court and all the other people who supported her throughout the journey. Definitely, Bhavani’s journey is really inspiring and her hard work also paid off.
