Axel Pettersson of GHFS, Sweden participated in the IGX tournaments in Boston, September 20-22, together with several other prominent fencers like Anton Kohutovic, Dustin Reagan, Nathan Grepares, Ben Strickling, Casper Anderson and Andrew Kilgore.
Axel took silver in spear fencing after Dustin Reagan, and then proceeded to take first place in sword & buckler, defeating Andrew Kilgore in the finals. Axel also got the award for best technical fencing in the sword & buckler tournament. To finish up, Axel defeated Nathan Grepares in a spectacular fight in the longsword final. The successes at IGX means Axel has taken first place in six different international tournaments this year and two second places, an unparallelled achievement in the modern HEMA scene.
IGX featured a special award for the participant who had gathered the most score overall at the various tournaments. This prize was won by the great Andrew Kilgore who won the cutting tournament and placed 2nd in heavyweight wrestling, heavyweight dagger and sword & buckler. Axel took second place overall, after dropping out of the cutting tournament due to fatigue.
The monday after the event was spent at Higgins Armory Museum, studying historical weapons and fencing manuscripts under the guidance of Dr. Jeffrey Forgeng. Some fascinating lectures was given, notably by Jeanry Chandler on townlife and weapon use in medieval towns, and Michael Chidester on the life of Joachim Meyer.
We want to thank Jeff Tsay and his team at Forte for putting together an excellent event, and hope that more Europeans wil join us again next year.
The livestream featuring all final fights can be found here:
Iron Gate Exhibition 2013 Livestream
