"Frank foils his competitors"

Frank Bartolillo, 14, can thank his old school, Farrar Public School for the Deaf at Croydon Park for his outstanding successes in fencing.

Frank who is profounded Deaf, won the Australian under 15 and under 17 fencing titles in Brisbane in early July. The Strathfield South High School student is now looking forwarding to competing on the US fencing circuit in October.

The American Junior fencers are among the best in the world and Frank believe competing against then will give him an idea of where he is place in the world.

Frank's coach, Tristan Chan recognises his pupils's natural ability in the sport. "Frank has a good feel for fencing" Mrs Chan said. "It take some people a long time to pick up the tactical side of fencing but he picked up very quickly" Frank started fencing while he was at Farrar Public School for the Deaf in 1994.

(EDITOR'S NOTE): On Wednesday 28 August 1996, The Daily Telegraph ran an article about the New South Wales Sports Star Awards, which Frank Bartolillo has been nominated under the category of June School Nominees for the New South Wales Sports Star Awards!

(By Pascal Adolphe, extracted from Newspaper).

As a fencer Frank Bartolillo says he has an advantage in being deaf.

The 15 year old junior fencing champion always competes without his hearing aid.

"It's the eyes - you can see better. I can focus better," he said.

A former student of Croydon Park's Farrar Public School for the Deaf Children, Frank has just returned triumphant from the national championships in Melbourne where he won gold in the under-20s sabre and foil. In doing so, he equalled his performance at last year's national titles.

His former teacher and manager Beverley Chan said that last year Frank became the youngest person to win both the sabre and foil. "And nobody has won both back to back until frank," she said.

This year, Frank also competed in the epee-, "only for fun" - and came third.

 Frank jets off to the Canary Islands for the World Championships - his second taste of international competition - with a little help from some influential friends. "Renee Rivkin has sponsored him to the US and now to Spain - no strings attached." Beverley said. "I wrote to a lot of people within two days Mr Rivkin's personal assistant rang and said he was very interested."

"That was great because he had Kieran Perkins or Cathy Freeman. He's a deaf kid from the Western suburb in a low-profile sports."

But Frank is also a potential Olympic champion whose Olympic ambitions are, surprisingly, not Sydney 2000 Games.

"He'll be too young for 2000, Beverley said. "Fencer matures around 21 or 22"