Spectator's comments about Olympic fencing

[Peach]

The parents of one of my students were in Athens, and saw some of the fencing. They sent me an e-mail, and I'm excerpting it:

We just returned from the Olympics, and went to a fencing match!! It was wild , and soooo fast. We enjoyed it. It was the medal rounds for the men's sabre we saw. Unfortunately for us, none of us knew the rules, or the scoring system, which made for lots of guessing on our parts. It was so quick and so aggressively smooth?? it is hard to describe. It seems to be a juxtaposition of skills--hard charging and yet almost a ballet of sorts. Frankly it taxed my brain more than my reflexes. I loved the story of the men's team--the NY Times ran a great article on them the week before we left. Our Olympic experience was unique-we were the guests of Basketball USA. We stayed on the Queen Mary 2 with the men's and women's teams. We got to see, do and hear lots of stuff the average spectator didn't get to experience. Part of it was the wonderful Olympic story and part of it was watching the whiners on the men's basketball team. I was, at times, ashamed to be American. I worked for the USOC for years in the '80's, and part of me longs for the "amateur" days that existed-at least in the USA- then. I also worry that the $$$ our athletes make render them so complacent when outside of their comfort zone. Athens was a super host for the games, and the Greek people couldn't have been nicer or more hospitable. They were ready for the Olympics.