ROGIET’S young fencer Olivia Barbieri has been mixing business with pleasure recently, writes Bob Cypher.

The “business” has involved her studying for her GCSEs at Caldicot School, while the pleasure has seen her win gold at the Welsh Youth Foils Championship and earn selection for another international representing Wales.

Olivia, 16, has been competing in national events to help her ranking and recently earned her call-up to represent Wales at next month’s British Youth Championships in Sheffield by taking the gold medal at the qualifiers.

She has also been selected for the Wales Ladies Foils team and will compete in the Youth Five Nations which this year is being held in Ireland.

Last year, when the Five nations was held in Cardiff, Olivia was in the Wales team that won silver.

Her next event is this Saturday at the Birmingham International and two weeks later she will compete in Sheffield (May 5th), by which time her exams will be over.

As if that wasn’t enough, Olivia has also qualified as a level 1 fencing coach.