Sport Profile
Ayach Bounachada – Fencing
Ayach Bounachada’s 17 years of coaching has helped create a strong Fencing program here in Manitoba, with athletes now competing on a National scale.
Bounachada recently traveled to Sicily for the Junior World Championships. He will continue his globetrotting in August as he was selected to be an official at the Olympic Games in Beijing. This represents the first time that a Manitoban involved in fencing has been selected to participate in the Olympic Games.
Traveling the world to train with some of the best coaches, Ayach has sought to become a better coach so his athletes can excel. He has the rare talent of being specialized in all three forms of fencing: epee, foil and sabre.
Ayach works with his athletes right from the development level all the way to the high performance level. His dedication is starting to pay off for Manitoba athletes. For the first time in the province’s history, Manitoba has two young sabre athletes and one epee fencer on the Canadian National team, spots traditionally held by Quebec.
His Manitoba athletes maintain a busy training schedule, but Ayach creates a fun learning environment that allows the athletes to flourish. Manitoba is now a force on the Canadian Fencing scene and has athletes competing directly for spots on the national team in all levels.
His talents have been widely recognized and he is currently working with the senior national women’s fencing team.
In 2007, the Manitoba Fencing team had a successful journey to Whitehorse for the Canada Winter Games, coming home with a gold, silver and bronze medal and five top-four finishes.
Ayach’s significant contributions to coaching were most recently recognized at the 2008 Coaching Manitoba Excellence Awards, where Ayach was presented with the Peter Williamson Memorial Award as Manitoba’s top High Performance Coach.
