Oxley College's Joe Slowiaczek picked up two individual medals and represented his country in three different disciplines at the Australian Under-20 National Championships in Melbourne last weekend.
No other fencer represented Australia in three weapons at the Oceania titles, held in conjunction with the nationals, with Slowiaczek and the NSW team finishing second in the épeé, third in the sabre and taking out the foil.
These results followed on from Joe's great results in the individual events with a silver in the foil and a third in the épeé, as well as a sixth place finish in the sabre.
Making these results even more impressive is the fact that Slowiaczek is just 15 and is competing against Aussie and Kiwi fencers with up to five more years experience in the sport than him.
"It's much more difficult fencing people that are older than you," Slowiaczek explained.
"If I'm fencing at my own age I find it pretty easy, but when I fence at under-20s it's very challenging and you have to remain focussed on the task ahead."
Slowiaczek's first event at the tournament was the épeé, where he was seeded 10th after the preliminary seeding rounds.
He then progressed through to the semi-finals where he met the top seed and had some trouble with his weapon, which wasn't working properly.
But rather than ask the judge to check his weapon, which you're entitled to do, Joe carried on and was down 12-0 before the judge forced him to check his weapon.
The 15-year-old said he didn't check his weapon because he didn't want to appear to be blaming his épeé for losing.
"At first I didn't test it because I didn't want people to think I was just being arrogant, and just thinking 'well there was no way he could have hit me, that must have been my point, so there has to be something wrong with my weapon'," he said.
He eventually lost the bout 15-2, but the score was just 3-2 against Joe after he got his épeé fixed.
Later in his favourite category of foil, Slowiaczek made it all the way to the final after going into the knockout rounds seeded three.
Slowiaczek lost the final to the top seed Victorian Charles Hemery, who is ranked number two for the weapon in the open ranks.
The top four Australian fencers from each weapon were then selected in the Australian team, with Slowiaczek the only person to make multiple teams.
Slowiaczek credits his success to the two week training camp he undertook in China in early January, which he described as "completely eye opening".
"You go there and after a couple of minutes there you realise these people are so much better than you," he said.
"They're more accurate, they're faster, they're fitter, they're just completely superior to the fencing here.
"When I came back from China and started fencing Australians again I just noticed how much slower everybody was. It just felt slow in comparison."
The next task for Slowiaczek is the World Junior Championships in Bulgaria, which will be the first time he has represented Australia overseas.
Slowiaczek has qualified to compete in the foil in the cadet division (under-17), but has missed out on competing in the epee by a single qualifying point.
Slowiaczek hopes the Bulgarian event in April is a stepping stone to a successful international career, but he admitted making the Olympic Games is still a long way off.
"If at all possible that would be a great thing to do, but to make the Olympics you have to be ranked in the top 32 in the world," he said.
Email a friend