Fencing II

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, since I am away for the weekend at a fencing tournament with one of my sons, I thought that I would post some of the images I have been taking at the tournament in order to give people a bit of a 'flavor' of what it is like to be at an event of this sort.

First, a quick disclaimer. I am away with an uncalibrated laptop, so these images are by no means adjusted...they are meant to convey an experience as opposed to an artistic statement. So, here we go:

The Armorer
Copyright Howard Grill

Every tournament has an armorer present. His or her job is twofold. First, they test and authorize each piece of equipment used in the tournament to ensure that they pass very rigorous safety standards. Second, they are on site to assist in the repair of equipment that breaks or malfunctions during the bouts.

Waiting
Copyright Howard Grill

There tends to be significant downtime between the direct elimination bouts......waiting for your turn to fence a bout that either allows you to continue in the competition or eliminates you....

Scoring A Touch
Copyright Howard Grill

Competitions consist of all the contestants being divided into pools of 5-7 fencers with the pools being balanced in fencer ability based on national rankings. The fencers in each pool all have a turn to fence a 5 point, or touch, match with each other fencer in the pool. The fencers are then ranked based on their performance in the pools (number of wins and losses, how many points they have scored, how many points have been scored against them) and then they advance to the 15 point direct elimination bouts. During these bouts the top ranked fencer of the day faces the bottom ranked fencer, the second best faces the second from the bottom, and so on. Ultimately, the top performing fencers face each other for first, second and third place.

A few more shots tomorrow, though I will be spending most of the day driving home. Then back to some more philosophical thoughts on Monday!