BOLTON fencing star Emily Ruaux took the positives out of narrowly missing out on sabre gold at British universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Nationals.

Representing the University of Surrey, Ruaux, aged 21, lost 15-13 to Harriet Dixon of Oxford University in the gold medal match, having worked her way through a competition involving more than 120 competitors.

Maths student Ruaux, a member of Rivington Park Fencing Club, is one of the country’s top fencing talents and represented England at the last Commonwealth Games.

She said of her BUCS experience in Sheffield: “It went well, I’m disappointed about the final but I feel like I had quite a hard run through,” she said.

“The girl I had in the last eight has fenced at junior world cup level so I know her from the international circuit. That was a tough match for me so by the time I reached the final I was pretty tired.

“I went 6-0 down, 7-0 down, pulled it back to 14-13 but I just couldn’t quite finish it off. I managed to pull it back, even when I was down I refused to give up.

“BUCS Nationals is always a great event. For the women’s sabre, the domestic circuit isn’t huge, so BUCS is actually one of the biggest events that I compete at on the domestic circuit.

“There are always good fencers here, there are other girls from the British team with me so the standard is always pretty high.”

The UK’s largest annual multi-sport event, BUCS Nationals has provided a building block in the fledging careers of many of Great Britain’s finest athletes.

And with high ambitions for her own career in fencing, Ruaux insists competing at BUCS is the perfect stepping stone on her journey to the top of her sport.

“Over the next 12 months, hopefully I’ll carry on with some senior World Cups and doing the national circuit,” she said.

“BUCS is always a good competition for us because it doesn’t count towards the national rankings, so it means we can come and fence and actually practise what we do in training without that pressure on us.

“I’ll just see how it goes, but the first step is the Commonwealth Games in 2018 next year. I was captain of the England team for the last Games so hopefully I can do that again.”

British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) is the national governing body for Higher Education (HE) sport in the UK, organising leagues and competitions for more than 150 institutions across 52 different sports. BUCS Nationals is the UK’s largest annual multi-sport event, bringing over 6,000 athletes to Sheffield to compete in nine sports.