Well, I can't complain: equal third place at the New South Wales novice foil state championships. And the other third-place winner was someone from my club. (Our coach is very pleased indeed.)

I was third after the pools: I defeated three (interestingly, including my club buddy), and was defeated by two. The two who beat me ended up first and second after elimination, so it seems to have been a very fair process.

Things I was grateful for: compassionate referees and officials, who knew and understood that I (at least) was horribly inexperienced, and who did their best to help me understand what I needed to do; my three club buddies who came along to compete; my family and friends who were there to support me; and the fact that for the first time in my entire life I won a sports medal of any sort whatsoever (not counting "thanks for participating").

Things I noticed: fencing attracts a truly astonishing variety of personality and physical types; bouts don't last very long at all, at least at novice level; and the way we bout at my (very small) club is *not* very different at all to the way people bout at other clubs, which is something that had concerned me.

Things I learned: I'm far stronger at offense than defense (the woman who eventually won was getting scores of 5-2 and 5-1 in the pools, but she and I got to 4-4 before she finally won), which gives me a very, very specific goal to work on back at the club (!); while my footwork is not bad, it's conservative in that I don't cover a lot of distance quickly; and I hate hate hate hate hate being hooked up to that damned wire.