Here we go again....

[random fencer p]

In 1992 it was a women's foil fencer named Caitlin Bilidouex(sp?) who had a great shot t a medal, nothing. In 1996 we had a full compliment of folks who go and had medal shots, nothing. 1996 was also the last of the 'old guard' to compete in all events. Very few who competed in 96 fenced much after that. In 2000 we had a very young, new crop of people to go and nothing. Here we are in 2004 with medal hopes swirling around each event, if this goes right or that goes right. Are we looking at another very disappointing Olympics for the American fencing folks? We just had Men's Sabre and not only no medals but no one in the final 8.

Here we go again?

Do we really have any one who can do this at worlds or Olympics? Our boys and gilrs win world cups and grand prixs but can't seem to get it done 'when it counts', WC's or OG's. All due respect to Smart but at one time he was #1 in the world and now can't make the top 8. What is going on here? Is the no pool thing hurting our folks that much? Do the other countries take it that much more seriously? Do they care more? Do they want it more?

As much as I hate to admit it Tomax may unfortunately be right. I don't know if choe is the right word but leave with no medals may be correct. I hope he/she is wrong but as an American and cheering for our guys and girls in Athens are we setting our hopes too high? Will we leave with no medals again? Don't start preaching women's sabre to me, this is the first year for this event and who knows what will happen. I hope the do get some medals out of it but after seeing our results from the men's sabre event I am losing confidence and hope.

I will keep cheering and hope to 'accidentally' catch some on TV when they bother to show it but I am losing faith any American in the fencing event can get it done.

[wflaschka]

I think "choke" isn't the right word, but "consistency" may be. The other day, I was looking at the Men's Foil brackets, and comparing seeds with the 2003 World Champ results. The numbers don't shift around too much, in general. Many of the fencers at the brackets have not only gotten good results, they get results that reflect their skill in tournament after tournament. A good result here and there is nice, but the tougher thing is to always fence to potential. That seems to be our (the USA's) next hurdle to leap. In terms of good results versus down-in-the-middle results, the Americans are all over the chart.

Theory: This would change if our athletes went full-time too.

[The0ne]

Smart lost to the winner of the event, Lee lost to arguably the best sabre fencer ever. I wouldn't say they did horribly, but it's true, they didn't meet expectations. Our real hopes are for our women's sabre fencers. We'll see how they do.

[noodle]

some people can perform well under pressure, some can't.

the olympics are the most extreme pressure. billions of eyes are on the olympics where one represents their country more than theirself. this is not the case in world cups or even world championships.

its possible that we will leave with no medals. but its also possible that we'll upset some major player and get an unexpected medal.

as a country, we're new to fencing and we have no professional fencers. these other olympic fencers all get paid and do nothing but fence all day every day from age 4 just to compete in things like this. i think we're doing pretty damned good for being a country of amatuers in a league of professionals.

[Craig]

but it's true, they didn't meet expectations.

Given their seeds, I'd say that they did meet expectations. They finished at or higher than their initial seed. Now, we were all hoping that they would do better, and they are capable of doing better (as evidenced by higher placements at WCs during the season), but they certainly lived up to expectations.

The only fencers expected to medal, based on seed, would be the US women's sabrists.

Craig

[sabreur]

I've saw Ivan Lee's bout against Podz, and Kamara James' bout against Logounova. In both cases, I thought there was a big difference in the quality of the footwork. It appeared to me that neither Russian was ever really under pressure. Kamara James in particular has a really ugly galloping advance, which leaves her with all of her weight on her front foot for a long time until her back foot catches up. Logounova scored a bunch of touches, particularly in the latter part of the match, by attacking into the advance--James couldn't react (retreat) because of the way her weight was....

MR

[sabreur]

One other comment. The Russian Sports Federation has evidently offered a bonus of about $50K to any athlete who wins a gold medal; the Ukrainians are offering $100K. This per the German television commentators...

Pretty major incentive (not that it worked in men's sabre....)

MR

[edew]

Hey, so far, no medals for the Russkies either. They're in the same boat as the US, eh?

Looking ahead, the US has a good chance in WS. The Russians have a good chance in ME. Russians are a bit higher in probability in WF, but really, against Vezzali and Gruchala, if they stay away from them until the very end, they might have a chance at bronze. The US has a better chance in MF than Russia, I think.

[sabreman]

Sabreur, Smart also has technical problems and tends to fall forward. In Lee's defense he did look much better in the NYC WC. The pressure just might have gotten to him at the Olympics. You could see he was pressing way to hard against Pozdniakov.

Also the Russians have been giving out that type reward since the 1996 Olympics. I think the US has something similar too for a Olympic gold.

[sabreman]

It will be interesting to see what happens in mens team sabre. I still think the Russians are the big favorites.

Hopefully the US women sabre fencers watched what happened in mens sabre -> none of the top four seeds got medals.

Also think a Romanian could sneak in for a medal in womens foil.

[oiuyt]

Is the no pool thing hurting our folks that much?

[SNIP]

I will keep cheering and hope to 'accidentally' catch some on TV when they bother to show it but I am losing faith any American in the fencing event can get it done.

Uhm, for the top 16 in the world there are never any pools. Top 16 in any given world cup are skipped directly to the DE's. Certainly anyone with reasonable medal hopes should have experience with going without pools.

As to the 'accidently' part, you do realize that NBC does do some advance planning and even tells other people when they plan to air what programming, right? Try watching Tuesday 6pm on Bravo, 7pm on Bravo (WS in both cases), Thursday at 2pm, 3pm on CNBC and 6pm on Bravo (MST in all three examples). All times EDT and all announced bouts are the gold medal for the event in question, although judging from yesterday selected other bits might get included. Granted you might get tiny snippets other times (caught the medal ceremony for MS randomly while flipping through the NBC channels), but those are the times to watch. No accident needed.

As pointed out above, why would you lose faith merely because the #19 in the world lost to the #2 or the #25 lost to the #6? Aren't these the results we should have expected? The reason we talk about WS is because that's where we actually have athletes that can reasonably be expected to medal. We have hopes for others, but so do all those other countries.

Talk about fair weather fan! :rolleyes:

-B :)

[sabreman]

I agree that the US met expectations although Smart probably does deserve some heavy criticism for his WC season. Still it would have been nice to see Lee or Smart in that third spot taken by the low seeded Ukrainian.

[veeco]

As to the 'accidently' part, you do realize that NBC does do some advance planning and even tells other people when they plan to air what programming, right? Try watching Tuesday 6pm on Bravo, 7pm on Bravo (WS in both cases), Thursday at 2pm, 3pm on CNBC and 6pm on Bravo (MST in all three examples). All times EDT and all announced bouts are the gold medal for the event in question, although judging from yesterday selected other bits might get included. Granted you might get tiny snippets other times (caught the medal ceremony for MS randomly while flipping through the NBC channels), but those are the times to watch. No accident needed.

Another thing to keep in mind that I learned today watching the women's epee, in the preliminaries, only one strip is equiped for broadcast (the green one), so if the American fencers are not on this strip, you most likely won't get any footage of them.
The organizers are trying to be sensible and schedule fencers on the green strip when TV stations are following them, but it's hard to work around the desires of all the TV stations.

[veeco]

It will be interesting to see what happens in mens team sabre. I still think the Russians are the big favorites.

I actually think that the French team may pull something off and get an upset in men's team sabre... We'll see if I was right, I guess... ;-)

[edew]

Touya, Touya, Pillet? Notachance. Hungary has a good chance. As will Italy (not as good).

[edew]

Methinks M. Random Fencer P is eating cybercrow right this moment...

[veeco]

Touya, Touya, Pillet? Notachance. Hungary has a good chance. As will Italy (not as good).

We'll see. I think it will be a close bout. The French have beaten the Hungarians in the last year.

[random fencer p]

Funny, I seem to recall you EDEW predicting medals for our Men's sabre fencers. Not a stretch to predict the women's sabre fencers.

Like I said, I was cheering for the girls to bring home medals and they got 2! I, like everyone else, was excited to watch it unfold on the italian site.

I merely asked the question. I am very happy they got 2 medals. Anymore?

Are we done getting medals this goround? I hope not, but the question doesn't change. What is going on that the folks we send, in events other than women's sabre, can't get medals. Big congrats to Soren for making the top 8 but what now.

I hope we are not done winning medals but if we are some serious questions need to be asked and some serious though as to why needs to happen.

As for Noah, I will express my opinion when I want and how I want you there is nothing you can do about it. You want to disagree fine, but keep the personal attacks to yourself. You don't like what I write fine but post something telling why I am wrong and not what kind of person I am. As far as I can tell, until the women's sabre event happened, many people on this site were predicting medals for individual MS and ME and our guys got nothing. Hence the reason I asked my question. For Noah, back off the personal attacks. Give me facts as to why I am wrong and not finger shaking personal attacks.

[Craig]

I predicted bronze wins for Keeth Smart and Seth Kelsey. I was wrong.

The reason why I picked them is that there have been and always will be upsets at these events, and while it is nice to pick the top 3 as your medalists and be done with it, it's also a lot of fun to pick a dark horse on your bracket and hope they will do well.

I also posted a prediction on women's sabre and I got two of the medalists correct, but in the wrong places.

If it were all easily predictable, there wouldn't be much reason to follow it.

[sabreman]

Men's sabre was a bit crazy. Who would have predicted the low seeded Ukraine getting to the medal round and actually taking the bronze? We are getting closer in the other weapons. There is a lot of history in those weapons to overcome but I think it will eventually happen. As the US fencers get stronger the domestic tournaments are improving.