| Kendall-Jackson International Foil Tournament: summary
For those who didn't attend, well you missed another great event.
The day started with a relatively small field of 25 fencers. The top international fencers included Simone Vanni, Tomer Or, Franck Boidin, Antoine Mercier, Marco Vannini, Stanislav Gutkovsky, Alex Murugin, Cedric Anen and Yann Staelens (ok, so the latter four are currently residing in the US...).
Other top US competitors were all from the local area include Gerek Meinhardt, Sam Perkins, Forrest MacDougall, Ian Tatum, Alex Khoshnevissan, Yury Sobolev, and several others. (Having not realized that I could have easily ran the competition while simultaneously fence, I stayed on as BC and competition director. Greg Massialas suggested I suit up, but that was after the third bout for some fencers in the pools. Oh well.)
The tournament format was pools, 100% up to DE from 32 with repechage at 16. The top eight were:
1. Vanni
8. Gutkovsky
5. Meinhardt
4. Murugin
3. Boidin
6. Mercier
7. Anen
2. Or
Vanni, Meinhardt, Mercier, and Or made the semifinals with Meinhardt and Mercier having to fence off for third and Vanni and Or vying for the gold (and the $1500 first place prize money).
The competition through to the medal bouts finished by 4:30PM, so there was enough time to get ready for the dinner at the Kendall-Jackson estates.
The appetizers were again magnificent. The grilled oysters with fennel and salmon caviar was fantastic. The cheese selections were fabulous, although they should have provided some as an after dinner treat. The BBQ kobe beef with rock salt was also incredibly tasty. The wine selections during the appetizers were very good, although I stuck just with the merlot. There was this tasty lamb tartare with a creme topping held in some sort of wafer cone. Very delectable.
The evening's dining experience started with a smoked salmon on top of asparagus vichyssoise. The main entree was roast duck with a vegetable selection (forgot the contents...what kind of a food reviewer am I, eh?). For dessert, we had chocolate torte (fantastic) and bleu cheese. The wine selection for the dinner wasn't as impressive as previous years, and there were no dessert wine included.
As usual, the dinner event started with the bronze medal bout. Gerek Meinhardt and Antoine Mercier squared off for the bronze with Mercier winning 15-7. Charlie Washburn was the referee with yours truly and Alex Kuznetsov the assesseurs.
After the bronze medal bout came the live auction to raise money for the Sonoma Academy (which is what the whole event was for). The auctioneer was dressed as Zorro and kept the party atmosphere lively. It was amazing how some numbers rang up. A very cute black labrador was auctioned off for $6500. $40,000 for a week trip on a private 160' yacht off the Carribbean (barring any further hurricanes, I suppose). Trips to London, trip on a private jet to Louisville Kentucky for the Kentucky Derby in April (6 or 8 bidders won that for $10,000 each).
Franck Boidin got into the spirit as he donated his foil and a real "french" kiss to the highest bidder. I think that went for $2800 for two ladies. Franck knows how to play the field.
John Lassiter of Pixar was there to donate many items from the upcoming films, The Incredibles and Cars, including caps, dolls, proofs, story boards, etc.
Other notable guests included a surprise visit by Gold medalist Mariel Zagunis and her entourage: two friends, Cathy Zagunis, Ed Korfanty and his wife.
I'll see if I can upload some pix later this evening.
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