5th place individual and 2nd place team medals from Detroit for Vet Men's Foil.

The Detroit NAC was a fun one for me as a fencer.  I fenced in the Vet Team foil and Vet Combined individual foil event.  My goals were for the individual event – I wanted to go through it injury free and better my Cincinnati result where I went out in the top-16 to Michael Cho.

The team event started off very shaky for me.  I was using a brand new foil, which I had set up with the cant I like, but hadn’t put a bend in it or practiced with it yet.  That, combined with the fencer’s style (lefty who covered his flank pretty well) had me start out my fist bout 0-3 on missed attacks!  I changed out my foil but fenced tentative from there and lost 1-6, which put us from a 1 point lead to a 4 point hole.

My next two bouts were back on track with 5-3 and 5-2 victories.  We won the match 45-32 and I was a +/- 0 on the match.

Semi-Finals I ran into Michael Cho as the first bout of our team match.  Surprisingly, I notched a 5-1 win against Cho.  Our team went on a roll through the first 3 bouts, with a combined 15-2 score.  I added on a 5-0 win and then a 5-4 in the third round.  Michael went on a run against our anchor (Walid), but there wasn’t enough time for him to do much other than push the pace.  That bout ended 9-5 for Cho and we won the match 45-28.  I fared much better than the first round at a +10.

In the finals we ran into the composite team of Robbie Carrillo, Rolando Balboa, Julio Diaz and Michael Gross.  Rolando had been working to try to put a team together for a while before the NAC and the team finally fell into place the week before.  Julio started off strong against me with a 5-3 bout and their team got a couple of more wins.  Rolando saw that I was up next and subbed in for Robbie because he beat me in pools in Cincinnati.  I rallied and went 11-5 to bring our team back within one point at 19-20.

The ensuing match between Julio and Andy had everything blow up when the side judge called Julio off the strip on his attack.  As far as I can piece things together, the referee originally called halt for Andy going off the strip but the side judge indicated that Julio was also off before either could hit their actions.  At this, Robbie got up in the referees face, a protest/call for bout committee was called and everything was ruined forever.  At then end of the delay, the fencers were reset and that bout ended for Julio 3-2.  We picked up more spectators as 2 (or more?) FOC members stayed to watch the rest of the match.

My last bout put me against Gross.  Hated this bout because I got to watch my point skitter off his chest plate 2 or 3 times to a one-light against.  I still haven’t learned to really deal with this situation in a fencer that knows how to utilize it.  He would keep his guard extended and high to prevent the shoulder-flick setup and bait me into going deep chest.  Once I was down a point or two on closeouts, I just tried doing what I could to put the light on.  In the end it wasn’t enough I dug our team another 2 points of a hole with a 5-3 loss.  In retrospect, I should have been looking at time and score and wasted time going for an even match.  I wanted to be a good setup person and leave the score even but the situation really dictated my role as not to lose any more points.  I went aggressive when the play should have been conservative.

In the end it didn’t matter as Julio closed the bout 5-1 and our team lost 35-45.  On the plus side for me (leading into individuals), I was a +2 for the last match and +12 for the day.

Individual Event – Monday

Medalists for the Vet Combined men's foil event in Detroit.

We lost a few people to work commitments as the Vet combined was on Monday.  I got into a pool of 6 and rocked it out.  Won two 5-0 bouts, plus a 5-1, 5-2 and 5-3.  There were a couple of people who had chest plates in our pool – only one had the super huge model that looked more like he was wearing a barrel than a fencing uniform.  Had problems with that chest plate again – lost two points on skittering chest hits until I slowed my hand down and just worked on placing the point.  (Again, I’ll have to work on dealing with this tactic vs. someone who knows what they’re doing with it.)

Before the event three of us from the club had a debate on using chest plates.  I put one aside to have for the MAD option, but decided that I didn’t want to use one.  First, I think it’s cheating and second I don’t have experience fencing with one so I didn’t want to mess with what was working for me.  Based on my pool results, I made the right choice for me.  I also noted in the pool that those of us who were playing “straight up” were pointing out who was wearing a chest plate and giving out advice on beating it.  There’s a social stigma to those things that for me isn’t worth the one or two points it may get me.

Going into DEs I was seeded 2nd; there were some bloodbaths of pools where everyone had one loss.  Won my first bout 10-2 and then faced off against Le Blanc in the 16.  I had beaten him in the team event but he came out with a different strategy and was winning for a good part of the bout.  I was able to change things up in the second period and got a 10-6 win.  Then I faced Boksiner who moved very well and kept good distance with me.  We each had a mini-rally but were tied at 5.  After that he made the right adjustment and beat me down the stretch 10-6.

Boksiner ended up beating Julio 10-6 in the final.  I missed the bout because at the same time as our matches, all of the vendors were breaking down and loading out.  As soon as my bout with Boksiner was over with, I was back over at the booth helping to load up.  After the medal ceremony, we went over to the hotel, I grabbed a quick shower, and we headed back got the truck and started the drive back to Atlanta.

Post event:

I placed much better than Cincinnati.  Got 5th place for this event, which put me up in the top-10 in the vet combined and vet40 points lists.  I feel fortunate that I got bouts in pools that were good match-ups for me.  I wonder how many vets will make it out to Reno to play.  I want to see more to have it be a strong, fun tournament.

Still had my aches and pains during the event.  I wanted to go injury free, but had pain in my leading leg hip flexor in the middle of pools.  The trainers did a great job showing me how to stretch it out and that got me through my bouts.  On Tuesday afternoon I noticed pain below my elbow which may be indicative of a tennis-elbow type of problem.  I’ll work on some light weights and avoid any flick actions for a couple of weeks while I get that strengthened.

I’m still learning the types of stretching and warm-ups that my body needs now.  I plan on getting in better shape as the year goes on and getting my body in the place where I can go a couple of tournament days without all of these aches and pains – at least during the tournament.  We’ll see how that goes.