Filby, Mackay carry the flag
for Manitoba Fencing
By Scott Taylor, Photos courtesy of Manitoba Fencing
Sarah Filby has
a long-distance
love affair
with Manitoba
Fencing. Born
in Toronto, she
first moved to
Michigan, now
lives much of
the time in
Sarah Filby
Minneapolis,
but trains with
her Manitoba fencing coach, Ayach
(Bounachada), in Winnipeg.
“Yeah, I’m kind of all over,” laughed
the surprisingly well-adjusted 17-yearold who was just nominated for
Manitoba’s Female Junior Athlete of
the Year. “I’ve spent the last two years
on the Cadet National Team and I
guess I have two goals – to do well in
NCAA competition and eventually
make Canada’s national Senior
Women’s Team.”
Filby, who spends time with her
dad in Minneapolis (that’s where she
was when she spoke to SportsLife
Magazine), but also spends a great
deal of time with her mom in
Winnipeg where she does much of
her fencing training and attends St.
John’s Ravenscourt School. She is now
deciding which NCAA school she will
attend on a fencing scholarship this
fall. She’s had interest from the NCAA’s
big fencing schools – Yale, Harvard,
Notre Dame, Princeton, Northwestern,
Penn and Penn State, but as of press
time, she still hadn’t made a decision.
And she certainly has the skill
and experience to be a solid NCAA
competitor. After all, she and
Manitoba Fencing’s other young
phenom, Cameron Mackay, had
tremendous results at the 2016 World
Junior and Cadet Fencing World
Championships in Bourges, France
last month. Mackay finished 12th in
Men’s Sabre, out of 149 competitors,
and Filby had, what was called, “a
great performance” as part of the
Canada’s Women’s Foil Team.
Not surprisingly, Mackay, 20, was
also nominated as Manitoba’s Male
Junior Athlete of the Year.
Mackay grew up in North Kildonan
and didn’t begin fencing until he went
to a summer sports camp at the age
of 12.
“It was a camp that combined
swimming and fencing,” he recalled. “I
kind of gravitated toward fencing.”
He eventually took up the sport
seriously at Rapier Fencing club where
he was coached by Practice Chartrand
and Zach Allard, but then moved up to
Sarah Filby (far left) and Team Canada winning silver at Pan Ams
28 / sportslife
the provincial
team where
he is currently
being
coached,
along with
Filby, by the
National
Team Sabre
coach, Ayach
Cam Mackay
Bounachada.
He’s had
a great season. Besides finishing
12th at the Junior Worlds, he won
three National Championship titles
and was fifth at the Junior Pan Am
Championship in Cancun Mexico.
Mackay recently came back from
the Canadian Fencing National
Championships where he came
second in senior men’s sabre out of
more than 40 competitors and is now
the highest ranked junior in Canada.
Cameron Mackay
with Coach Ayach
These days, he has three training
lessons a week with Coach
Bounachada, strength training twice
a week and four provincial training
sessions where he spars with the other
fencers. He is studying Biology at the
University of Winnipeg and despite
his success, approaches his fencing
“career” very pragmatically.
“I’ve attended a lot of international
competitions,” he said. “It’s a very
Asian dominated sport. It used to be
very European and still is in many