British duo Honeybone and Webb collect men’s sabre bronze at Leon Paul Cup in London

Honeybone, 27, was eliminated at the semi-final stage by eventual winner Giovanni Repetti of Italy, whilst 22 year-old Webb exited at the same stage at the hands of another Italian, Stefano Scepi.

The 2018 Leon Paul Cup was held at the University of East London’s ’Sportsdock’ with this latest FIE satellite event featuring both men’s sabre and foil competitions.

Repetti and Scepi fought out an exciting Final to decide the gold medal, and it was the lower-ranked Repetti who eventually prevailed by a single touch with a 15-14 scoreline.

To get there, the winner had a relatively smooth passage to the latter stages of the competition with victories over Spain’s Gonzalo Solano (15-5), Poland’s Jakub Ocinski (15-7), Mexico’s Gibran Zea (15-6) and then France’s Edward Barloy (15-3) in the quarter-finals.

That brought a last four meeting with Honeybone who had beaten a trio of fellow British fencers in the shape of Samuel Boorne (15-9), Jamie Craze (15-8) and George Suddards (15-10) before accounting for Italy’s Alberto Pellegrini 15-12 in the quarter-finals.

That was where Honeybone’s success came to an end as Repetti progressed to the Final with a 15-10 victory.

Scepi’s route to the Final proved a lot tougher as having negotiated the initial sudden death rounds, he had to overcome fellow Italian Raffaele Minischetti in the quarter-finals by a single touch margin 15-14, before seeing off Webb in the semi-finals 15-12.

Webb’s passage to the semi-finals had seen him overcome fellow Great Britain fencer Loek Janssen (15-5), two Italians Francesco D’Armiento (15-10) and Alberto Alpino (15-14) and Hungarian Martin Nagy (15-6).

The Final of men’s foil competition was also decided by a single touch which went in the favour of the Czech Republic’s Alexander Choupenitch.

The 24 year-old, ranked 20th in the world, edged out world number 33 Martino Minuto of Turkey 15-14 in what was a great contest.

Great Britain’s Ben Pegg was one of Choupenitch’s victims on his winning run, losing 15-3 at the last 16 stage before the Czech fencer accounted for Italy’s Lorenzo Nista in the quarter-finals and Belgium’s Stef Van Campenhout in the semi-finals by identical 15-6 scorelines.

Minuto had overcame beaten another British fencer James Page 15-6 at the start of his drive to the Final, which was book-ended by victories over Japan’s Daiki Fujino 15-6 in the quarter-finals and then Italian Filippo Guerra 15-8 in the semi-finals.