Touya's "Saber Rifle"

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

I just want to say that antics like the saber rifle make the sport more spectator friendly. Nobody wants to see someone fence, and then walk off the strip unemotionally like a golem. The more razzle-dazzle our sport seems, the more people will like it. What if our team started playing a fight song during the one minute break during de's, provided that we are winning. C'mon, where are the cheerleaders?

[CarlKnoch]

And YOU seemed to miss the point of my post.
Nobody is questioning whether it is appropriate to celebrate after winning a bout, ANY bout, at any level.

But celebrating by pretending to shoot your opponant(or anyone) with a gun, is inappropriate. Tell me, if YOU were the referee, in a hypothetical situation where someone had just won a bout, and you saw him pretending to shoot his opponant with a rifle, would you not black card him?

Imagine if you will that you are reffing in your first tourney of the new season, and someone does the rifle mime after a DE. Could you now, after seeing that it was allowed at the Olympics with NO card, card this action at all? We are supposed to referee by convention on some issues, and by not carding the guy the FIE referee set a dangerous precedence in my opinion. If you do card someone locally now for this, you're SURE to get an arguement as all fencers have either heard of the action or saw it on TV.

I think it's sad.

[achilleus]

Whether relations between France and USA are good or not is irrelevant. It is the Olympics and people are supposed to be nice to each other. Especially athletes competing against each other. And those athletes are nothing but athletes. They are not there to represent the interests or the quality of the relations between one country or another. That might not have been the case during the cold war, but the cold war is over!

The poor relations merely mean that actions that the french athletes take are looked upon unfavorably. At least over here. You can say it shouldn't matter, but it does.

I wasn't trying to give an example of good or bad sportmanship. I was simply pointing out the fact that someone else might have thought that he was shooting at his teammates and not at his opponent, since they had had the same idea a couple of days before the event occured.

Ah I see. That's a pretty teneuous link.

To me, Damien Touya's sabre rifle isn't good, or bad sportmanship. It's just something that happened, and I don't try to read into it or to give an explanation of why it happened. There were plenty of "antics" as someone would say in this bout, on both sides. Damien Touya's last celebration was an other one of them. Whether you find it offensive or not is your problem. I am merely arguing why I don't find it offensive and why I think it wasn't necessary to make such a big deal out of it.

If I were to pick one "offensive" thing from that bout from the French, I'd pick Gael Touya's screaming in one of the American's faces a couple of bouts earlier.

I didn't qualify it as bad sportsmanship (thus no card), merely assinine.


D+F+P,

People don't watch football for the end zone celebrations. While some of those celebrations may be fun to watch, lets face it, the over the top ones are hated by all fans of the sport.

So, celebrations are fine, however, watching someone act like an ***, isn't enjoyable.

[swordsen]

yaaawwwwnnnnnnn

Are we about through flogging this dead horse?

[EricS]

ALERT - This thread has officially been ended. Move along now. The dead horse has been beaten. Nothing more to see.

Hey, I started it...

[achilleus]

Honest question...

Being unversed on web etiquette, I've never quite understood why is that when people are tired of reading a thread why they feel compelled to add to it, as opposed to just stop reading it?

For instance, the two posts above express their fondess for this thread to die. Then why add to it's life? Why not just ignore the thread, don't waste your time reading it, and if people still want to 'flog a dead horse', let 'em. It's their bandwith.

There are several threads that I followed at first, and have just stopped reading since they stopped saying anything new. Is there some unspoken rule where I must post that the proverbial horse is dead? Or should I listen to my own common sense and go on my merry way?

Thanks.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Honest question....

There are several threads that I followed at first, and have just stopped reading since they stopped saying anything new. Is there some unspoken rule where I must post that the proverbial horse is dead? Or should I listen to my own common sense and go on my merry way?
Thanks.

I personally think the analogy of "beating a dead horse" is quite ghastly. Horses should not be beaten... dead or alive.

[achilleus]

I personally think the analogy of "beating a dead horse" is quite ghastly. Horses should not be beaten... dead or alive.

Oooooooookay....

[Inquartata]

How else will we ever get a companion for cowpaste?

[Black Jeebus]

Horse-paste?

[swordsen]

It's like a car wreck. You don't really want to see it but you are drawn to the ghastly event..... Just need to see how much worse it can get.......

[Artisan]

To me, Damien Touya's sabre rifle isn't good, or bad sportmanship. .

Depends, if he was making rat-a-tat-tat noises at the same time - if he was then it was poor sportsmanship if it was just pantomime, we'll let him slide.