Irish switch 'the best thing I ever did', says fencing dreamer Dick 

IRISH CONNECTION: Fencer Jadryn Dick poses for a portrait during the European Games team day for Team Ireland – Krakow 2023 at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Blanchardstown. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Generations of impressionable kids have looked on agape at stars of the silver screen and wondered what it would be to emulate their movie idols. 

Childhood dreams rarely make it through to adulthood but Jadryn Dick took his fascination and ran with it.

Dick will be one of the 120-plus athletes representing Ireland at the multi-sport European Games that get underway in Poland next week and he can pinpoint the exact moment when he first harboured thoughts of brandishing a blade and wearing a lamé and mask.

“I was a big James Bond fan growing up and fencing was in the movie ‘Die Another Day’. Pierce Brosnan fences in it, Madonna is in it, and they’re all wearing white in this big posh club with all the knights and all the armour on display.” 

Already a decent soccer player, Dick persuaded his parents to go about finding somewhere he could scratch this new itch. As fate would have it, the Excalibur Fencing Club, which has moved maybe five times down the years, was situated just five minutes away from their house at the time.

Home was Hamilton Hill, a suburb of Fremantle in Western Australia where his father William, two of his sisters and their parents pitched up in the late 1950s as part of the ‘Ten Pound Pom’ generation that emigrated Down Under on the subsidised scheme of the time.

William was a Belfast man, Andersonstown to be precise, and the surroundings young Jadryn was born into made for a multicultural offering with an abundance of families boasting German, Italian and Croatian heritage to name a few.

An only child, his realisation of what it was to be Irish was fostered by his dad but really began to hit home when he was six or seven years old and his father’s cousin lost two children of a similar age to a tragic accident at a river crossing.

The extended family flew down from Ireland in support and he can still hear the thick Irish accents – much thicker than his dad’s or grandmother’s – at the wake and the efforts they made to make their young relative smile at such a difficult time.

“For me as a kid it was just like, ‘wow, my family is so much bigger than I thought’.” 

His ambitions were always outsized. A two-time Australian champion, Dick made the move to Hungary, one of fencing’s hotspots, to pursue his sabre career and the goal of making the Olympics. One for Australia first and then one for Ireland, he had told his dad.

Politics and policies on the Australian side prompted the switch just over a year ago before the first of those targets could be met and he will be one of four Irish fencers at the Tauron Arena in Krakow when this country makes its debut in the sport at a European Games.

“To be honest with you, best thing I ever did. I wish I’d done it earlier. The federation are so supportive, incredibly supportive, and I can’t thank them enough for what they did in trying their best to speed up the process so I could do a lot of competitions earlier.

Jadryn Dick poses for a portrait during the European Games team day for Team Ireland. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

“I wish the other side had been a bit more responsive but it is what it is. There’s no animosity. A lot of the Australian team are still my friends and I’ll see them at the World Championships and I still take a lot of inspiration from athletes that I grew up with.” 

More inspiration has been taken from athletes on these shores. 

Katie Taylor, Michael Conlan, Paddy Holohan and Sean McComb are all named at one point and some of that fighting spirit will be needed as he looks to qualify for the Paris Games in 2024.

He may be biased but it is hard to disagree with his claim that fencing sets one of the most arduous of Olympic qualifying routes, not least given its zonal nature and the presence of so many heavyweight nations in the European division.

Long story short: the top 16 in the world go through, then the top athlete in Europe. After that it’s a dogfight where he will have to retain his status as Irish number one and then win the last of the European qualifiers early next year.

It’s a punishing path but one he embraces, his love for the sport spilling from his elevator pitch for a sport that is dynamic, fast and exhilarating and a pursuit that demands a physique part way between sprinter and rugby player.

Dick has relocated to London where he works for Leon Paul, the fencing manufacturer, and he is also part of the company’s Leon Paul Project which provides a training hub for fencers and physio, S&C and analytics support.

Vital and appreciated as that is, it’s not on a par with full-time athletes like Hungary’s world number one Áron Szilágyi and the Italian legend Aldo Montano who was into his 40s by the time he retired.

The costs of living in a city like London, flights, accommodation: it all adds up too.

If it’s a serious business following your dreams then that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun along the way and his sense of humour is clear in conversation and in the Instagram post he put up once from training where he wore the most garish of leopard-print shorts.

“I always say that with a surname like Dick you can’t take life too seriously, you know what I mean? I try not to take myself too seriously.”