Thread: OLYMPICS!!!

QO, are you a fencer? Most people think it's really hard to follow without firsthand knowledge.
Alexander

Originally Posted by NeitherMightier

QO, are you a fencer? Most people think it's really hard to follow without firsthand knowledge.
Alexander

Yup. I figure if people can follow curling after they've never heard about it, fencing should be a cake walk

If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them though. My favorite weapon to compete in is foil, second is epee. I like to play with sabres, but only for fun rather than competition- I'm not a knuckle dragger (it's a fencer's inside joke).

I just watched a bit of fencing yesterday, and I think that curling is very easy to follow, and Fencing is not.

Following first contact, the match is over in a split second. And what I also don't like is that those sabres seem way too flexible to be representative of a real weapon.
Of course, I am just a layman so I may be wrong. But as a spectator sport I don't like it because of these reasons.

They're only flexible laterally. Even then though, would you really want to play with something that represents a real sabre? These hurt bad enough.

Sabre is all about rules. You have right of way: the first person to attack gets the point in case of a double touch. To take right of way away, you must parry then get a touch (riposte). Target areas are the waist up. Everything else is null.

It's a very gentlemanly sport, as is foil. Epee is knockdown, drag out beat the other guy into submission as quick as you can.

I've pretty much given up on all sports and don't watch anything much anymore (except a little rugby now and again) - I won't be watching the olympics. I can't remember the last time I saw a modern athelete display any kind of sportmanship. I guess when all these sports, even the olympics, are basically professional inevitably huge amounts of money are involved so gentlemanly behaviour is too much to expect. Watching some walking advert for performance enhancing drugs, wearing a high tech low friction swimsuit out cheat his competitors - no thanks.

Of the fencing events (foil, epee, sabre), sabre is the hardest to follow by quite a lot. Epee is probably the easiest. If you get a chance to catch some of that, give it a try.

I'm not able to watch any of the coverage on TV, but I'm interested to know if the last round of timing changes in the scoring apparatus has made it any easier to watch, as intended, or if it just frustrated a lot of fencers like me without expanding the popular audience.

The changes are old news, but it seems like the Olympics would be the first opportunity to test the mass appeal of "new fencing" with any considerable audience of non-fencers.

Alexander

Bruno, you might take in the Epee rounds. They tend to last a little longer as the fencers have to be a little more careful.