This weekend was the quebec senior provincials and the junior circuit event #4. The senior was ridiculously strong because the Canadian High Performance camp was taking place here in Montreal and the HP fencers had to fence the event.
The night before the event I went to the hotel where the HP fencers were staying to visit my coach and some fencers from my ex-club. It was a pretty sweet reunion, we went to the grocery store, bought a bunch of food and headed back to the suite where coach cooked us a great dinner. It was really chill reuniting with all the guys and the food and vodka was all pretty delicious. I left around 11 because I wanted to get some sleep before the event. On the way home I figured out a plan to wash my fencing stuff before the event (because I didn't have a washing machine at my place) - the plan, as I had already left my fencing stuff at my AC's house, was to get her to put it in the wash when she got home from work and then for me to wake up at 5:20 am to go over to her place, transfer the laundry to the dryer, fix my epees while drying my clothes and then to head to the tournament. At around 3:30 am AC called me and said that she didn't really feel comfortable washing my stuff cause she thought she would wake up her roommates, but I figured, no problem, my stuff isn't that bad and now I can just wake up a little later. I got up and turned off my alarm while trying to do the math to figure out when I needed to wake up to go to the tournament. Because I was so tired and my brain was working so slowly, I then decided to lie down on my bed while figuring out what time to wake up. Obviously I fell asleep instantly.
Luckily the next morning I managed to wake up naturally at 7:15 am. This was not 100% ideal still as: Registration was at 8 and it takes me 45 minutes from my door to the venue; I still had to get my fencing equipment from AC's house AND the metro was not working.
Despite the difficulties I managed to make it to the tournament and got going after I got there pretty quickly. I fenced pretty badly in my first pool because I hadn't warmed up and went 2-3. In the 2nd round of pools I fenced a lot better but still managed to go only 4-2. I was seeded 16th and got a bye to the 32 where i fenced my ex-teammate and alternate on the senior team, Tigran Bajgoric. I got off to a great start and led 10-6 at one point; however, I backed off my aggressiveness and he increased his intensity and changed up his strategy a bit and I ended up losing 15-13.
The next day in junior I again woke up late - I had slept in my coach's hotel room that night because a bunch of us fencers had gone out to a nearby Irish bar to celebrate St. Paddy's day. After a nice breakfast of perogies and fruitsations I made my way to the venue in time for the 1 pm close of registration. Again because I didn't warm up very well, I started slowly in my pool and lost won. I was happy that I got some momentum into the DEs because I won my last pool match 5-0 against a promising younger fencer. I was seeded 8th but had the easier half of the tableau.
In my first match I had a very young inexperienced fencer and I played around, practiced doing parry ripostes to the foot and did some attacks that I wanted to work on. After that I had the fencer who beat me in pools (crushed me 5-2). This guy is not part of my club but he trains with us often and he always gives me problems despite the fact that I have waay better results than he does. The Brébeuf guys gave me a name for the situation of having a worse fencer who you are incapable of beating and so I discovered that this guy was my "bête noire". I was determined to beat him because this is the first time I had ever fenced him in a DE in a competition and I really pride myself on fencing my best when its the most important. Both of us are very defensive and I think after the first period I was up 1 or 2 to 0. I didn't attack at all and built myself a 10-3 lead. As the 3rd period was ending he got some touches by pushing me hard but I closed it out 15-9.
In the next round I had the #1 seed, a cadet from my club who had participated in the HP camp. After 4 days straight of fencing all day he was completely gassed and I rolled him in a 15-5 win. Normally its closer between us but I fenced very well and he fenced pretty poorly. In the semis I met up with Vincent and we had a great match. I kept getting a 1 or 2 point lead and he kept coming back. At about 9-7 for me I got so tired that i stopped yelling and started just putting up my index finger when i got a point. I was up 14-12 at the end and got a great angulated counter attack to his hand while leaning as far back as possible with my foot on the back line (to win it).
In the final it was lambert and I. I fenced well at the beginning until my grip managed to get jammed hard in the muscle between forefinger and thumb. I don't really know how it happened but i think i was doing a counterattack into his disengage attack and our bells met afterwards. After that point (6-5) I was distracted by my hand and felt like I had no strength in my parries. When I think back now I think it was more of a mental distraction than a physical impediment. He ended up wining the match 15-11 but we traded our prizes on the podium. I ended up with some game called "scene it" and he got a chess board.
This was the 2nd last junior circuit event for the year and so far in 4 events I've come 2nd, 3rd, missed one event cause I didn't want to go to Rimouski, and 2nd. The only event left is junior provincials and I really want to win that one to get myself the complete set of medals.
03-17-2008 12:02 PM