Shuna Body

Chairman of the British Disabled Fencing Association. Shuna is an ex-fencer (for around twenty years) and qualified coach. Shuna has held the position of Chair since 2006. 

Caz Walton MBE

Caz was involved in every Paralympic Games from Tokyo 1964 onwards. Until 1988 we had to multi-sport, so she competed in Swimming, Track, Table Tennis and ultimately became a fencer (when she was too old to compete and win as a Swimmer).

Caz was also captain of the first Women's Wheelchair Basketball team at the age of 41. Her last Games was Barcelona, when she finished fourth and decided it was time to quit. But she still wanted to be involved and was Fencing team manager in 1996 and 2000.

Interview with Caz.

Laszlo Jakab

Laszlo Jakab has been a fencing coach for 30 years. In 1996 he was invited to coach in the North East of England, since then the North East has became one of the strongest regions for fencing in Britain. Laszlo's fencers are competing at the highest levels, ranking at the top of the UK and regularly winning competitions

Laszlo has been a fencer since he was 10 years old. He started his career as a fencing coach in 1970 in Ujpesti Dozsa, taught and supervised by Mr. Barna Csanyi and Mr. Lajos Somody.

Laszlo was the first coach of Szabo Bence and Laszlo Csongradi, the Olympic Sabre Team Champions in Seoul. Szabo Bence also won Olympic Gold in the individual sabre in Barcelona. In 1994 Laszlo's student, Joszef Navarette became Olympic silver medalist in the sabre team at Atlanta and later in 1999 was a member of the Hungarian team who took the World title. In addition, his son Peter Jakab, was a finalist in the Junior World Championships at Sao Paulo. Even today, many current Hungarian team members owe their fencing skills to Professor Laszlo Jakab.

Paul Cordell

Secretary of the British Disabled Fencing Association. Paul is an ex-fencer (for nearly twenty years) and qualified coach.

Paul became involved with Disabled Fencing when his club ran a sponsored 24 hour fence in 1991.  An event not to be taken lightly, as steam sabre at 3am with tired fencers becomes a little dangerous!  From the funds raised, the association was able to purchase its first electric sabre box.  Paul has been coming along to training sessions ever since handing over the cheque to the association.  This purchase proved invaluable, as in the following year at the Paralympics in Barcelona, the sabre team won the Bronze medal. 

Since 1995, Paul has held the position of Secretary and continues to help at training weekends.  In 2004, he was the Team Manager at the Athens Paralympic Games and fills this role at various World Cup events throughout the year.