AN EARLY disappointment in a competition is often crucial for a youngster in any sport. It is how they react to the perceived failure that determines their future.

Within seven months of starting the sport at the age of 9, Dominique Stowell took part in a national age-group foil tournament and finished second to last. This low placing was understandable since she had been practising for only an hour a week. Her father, Philip, said to her: “If you are going to do something, then you should do it properly.”

“It was a turning point for her,” he says. “After a performance like that, it could have been the start or it could have been the end of things. She could have given up, but she didn’t.” Instead, Stowell increased the volume and quality of her training and, last July, aged 14, became the youngest fencer to win the British senior title in the foil.

Indeed, on all weapons, only Louis Bond-Williams, now a member of the senior team, has won a women’s title at a younger age, being just two weeks younger than Stowell when she was victorious in the sabre in 1997.

Stowell will not be taking part in senior events this winter, where international competition will be particularly intense since there will be qualifying tournaments for the Olympic Games. Instead, she will be focusing on the cadet (under-17) and junior (under-21) events in the build-up to the World Championships in these age categories in Bulgaria in April.

Stowell has been told that she has the compact explosiveness of a weightlifter. This is not an analogy that is usually made of a female fencer, but the sport has become increasingly athletic, even at junior level.

“She has fabulous blade work,” Ziemek Wojciechowski, her coach at the Salle Paul club, which is based at Highgate School in North London, says: “She also has tremendous spirit. It is her heart, her desire and her tenacity which are so impressive. When she took the national senior title (she also holds the cadet and junior ones), I was not that surprised.”

And her weaknesses? “Perhaps to improve her concentration and tactical skills,” Wojciechowski adds. “She needs to work on perfecting her blade work, making it smaller and neater.”

Stowell’s father says: “Ziemek has given her a diversity of technique and she is also not daunted by meeting older and larger fencers.” She often trains with men, since they are usually faster and more aggressive than women.

A pupil at St Clement Danes School in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, Stowell has to fit in her fencing with preparing for nine GCSEs. Three days a week, she is driven by her father on a 1¾-hour round trip to Highgate for training sessions and also has competitions or further training at the weekend. She exercises on running and step machines early in the morning, occasionally accompanies her father running and practises trampolining at school.

Stowell likes the individuality of fencing. “I’m not really into team sports and wasn’t much good at them,” she says. “I like to do a sport by myself.”

She began fencing almost by accident. Her mother, Deborah, had always been attracted to the activity and took Stowell to a local sports centre. Despite her commitment to fencing, she still has time, like any teenager, to socialise. And, like any teenager, she has dietary foibles. “I am the same as any normal person. I hate vegetables and love sweets,” Stowell says.