VIDEO: Jonny Dangerous tackles wheelchair fencing

Jun 7 2009 by Jonny Greatrex, Sunday Mercury

EN GARDE!

AS I peer through the thick gauze of my head-guard, I can just about make-out the shape of Simon Wilson waving his epee sword at me.

The worrying thing is that this 50-year-old is the best in country at what he does – wheelchair fencing.

Now he’s going to give me a lesson in this little-known sport and then see how much I can remember as we have a DUEL.

Simon, from Nottingham, explains the easiest way to score a point is to hit the part of your opponent nearest to you as, unlike Olympic fencing, any blow landed counts.

He holds his epee to one side, exposing his wrist, and tells me to hit him.

Sounds easy enough and I go for it by leaning almost completely out of my wheelchair and thrusting at his arm. But the result is I miss entirely, nearly toppling out of my seat.

This is going to be harder than I imagined...

Simon has been competing at this sport for two years.

Before that he took part in able-bodied competitions for seven-years using a prosthetic limb he has needed since a bone-eating disease caused his left leg to be amputated as a young boy.

But it took a lot of convincing before he was prepared to try the wheelchair version of the sport, in which he now hopes to represent Britain at the 2012 London Paralympics.