This morning I woke up early, around 7:30 am, unfortunately I was supposed to wake up at 6:15. What happened was that I had set my alarm for 6:15 pm rather than am; luckily, I still woke up before the competition but I have no idea how.
I got a ride with a friend of mine and we arrived 5 minutes after the close of check-in. Again, fortunately, our clubmates had already checked us in so we were allowed in the tournament. Neither of us really had any time to warm up we both just put on our fencing stuff and started to go (I had to reattach my zipper to my jacket first as it had fallen off in the wash the night before).
I fenced atrociously in my pool. I ended up 3-2 with an indicator of zero, seeded 11th. In the first round I had a young fencer from my club.
I played around for most of the match until I found myself down 14-13. I focused hard for the last couple touches to move on.
Next round was another fencer from my club, he had done well in pools but I fenced very seriously and very well to win 15-8 in two periods.
Next round I had Lambert (6th at cadet world championships), who up to this point I had never beaten in a DE match. I fenced very strategically in this match, mostly trying to deny him the opportunity for easy touches. I pushed him to his end of the strip and then didn't attack. I was up 3-1 at the end of the first and 7-5 at the end of the second. In the third I pushed the lead up to 3 before he made an amazing comeback. He was able to hit me for 3 singles with a very good counter-time strategy - big step forward to draw a counter-attack and then a very fast take in 6 and a lunge. The strategy is simple but the touches were very well prepared. At the end of the third we were tied at 13. Going into overtime I had priority. I used about 30 seconds to set up before taking his blade in 8 and hitting on the leg.
In the semis I had another fencer from my club who I fenced in the final of the last canadian junior competition. Lately in practice I have been dominating him and I was able to do the same here. Because he is a lefty, I use 4 a lot and with a combination of parry-ripostes, flicks to the inside of the arm and flick fleches to the inside of the body I quickly built an 11-3 lead. At around that point I began to experiment with some other (less successful) strategies and finished the bout out 15-9.
In the final I made some very large mistakes. I did not give my opponent enough respect and I rushed my preparation. He beat me 15-10 for the gold which was very disappointing.
All in all it was a great day of fencing, however it doesn't feel half as good when you don't win.
10-13-2007 04:15 PM