Fencing.Net - Your Guide to Fencing & Fencing Equipment

edew · 07-19-2002, 06:50 PM

I volunteered at the Modern Pentathlon World Championships, held at Stanford University, this week. I helped out with the shooting and the fencing. Some comments:

* Shooting is a damned boring sport to watch. And the fact that you have to be absolutely quiet doesn't help make the sport friendly to spectators. However, the first two days' shooting was held in a glass-enclosed area, so the spectators could cheer without spooking the shooters. The following two days, it was held in Maples Pavilion, which is a basketball court with a very springy floor. So, anyone walking on the floor would cause the whole floor to vibrate making shooting almost impossible. Still, the range head made sure the place was calm and still before announcing "begin shooting" and the shooters did a pretty darned good job. The target is 10 meters away. The black circle is about 2 inches in diameter. The smallest bullseye center ring is a little less than a quarter-inch in diameter. I'm guessing that if you can get it in the black circle, you're a marksman. If you can get it in the little ring, you're just lucky. With all the other shooting noise, the bouncing floor, and sun shining in, it's just luck. At least at this championships.

* The epee fencing isn't that high-level. I would say the best there (for the men's) would make top-32, but might not break top-16 at an NAC. The top women might not do as well. It's also interesting the tactic they take. There is very little mind-games. When the referee says, "fence!" the two go at it like boxers. There is no searching out weaknesses or anything. I've seen several where the clock stopped at 0:59. That means right after the call for fence, one made a fleche and hit with one light. No one in fencing would do something that drastic. The footwork was all right, but I saw a lot who rested on their back foot and didn't work on retreating.

The women's epee had a lot of heavy-handed parries and disengages. No subtlety at all.

* Didn't get to see the swimming or the running (or the riding), so don't know how they did. Results can be found on the website:
<a href="http://www.pentathlon2002.org" target="_blank">www.pentathlon2002.org</a>

* The female athletes were all great looking. A lot of Kornikouva look-a-likes. (Rublevska is one. Grolichova is another.) There's lots of good looking guys, too, for those who might be interested.

* Speaking of Rublevska and Grolichova, volunteering at this event is an exercise in tongue-twisting pronounciations of names. One of the toughest is Gretchichnikova. How about Vnukova or Maloszyc or Zadneprovskis or Litviakov.

Ooh, my mouth still hurts.

[ 07-19-2002, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: edew ]

Inquartata · 07-19-2002, 06:56 PM

Think the odd fencing might be the result of going to one touch only?

Given how far the shooting has come from any sort of realism, I wonder why they still cling to that notion of "realism" in fencing...

edew · 07-19-2002, 07:01 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Inquartata:
Think the odd fencing might be the result of going to one touch only?

Given how far the shooting has come from any sort of realism, I wonder why they still cling to that notion of "realism" in fencing...<hr /></blockquote>Definitely the one-touch has a lot to do with it. If time expires and no one scores, it's double defeat. Doesn't help you at all, unless you're just trying to help a teammate by forcing your opponent (who might be ahead) to lose.

In what sense is the realism missing in shooting? It certainly wasn't intended (at the first Modern Pentathlon) to shoot another person. Although I guess they could have a "last man standing" sort of paint-ball shooting contest. Or laser-tag with real-time determination of who go hit first and so on. That would be interesting.

Peach · 07-19-2002, 07:31 PM

A pentathlete trains at our club. She goes to USFA epee tournaments with the expectation that she will lose most of her bouts, but she will always get the first touch. It does affect your mind-set.

Inquartata · 07-19-2002, 08:30 PM

Well, in the scenario MP envisions, ie the activities a mounted messenger might need to perform, shooting would scarcely be done at ten meters, for one thing---I could hit a target with a rock at that range. Nor would it be done with a piddly little high-tech .22 or whatever they use nowadays, with balances and stabilizers and spotting scopes and whatnot. They should at least use a real rifle, in a real caliber, at a realistic range, or else use horse pistols instead...

If the shooting is done as modern shooting, perhaps the fencing should be done as modern fencing, to 5 or 10 or 15 touches...

epeemike81 · 07-19-2002, 08:47 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Inquartata:
Well, in the scenario MP envisions, ie the activities a mounted messenger might need to perform, shooting would scarcely be done at ten meters, for one thing---I could hit a target with a rock at that range. Nor would it be done with a piddly little high-tech .22 or whatever they use nowadays, with balances and stabilizers and spotting scopes and whatnot. They should at least use a real rifle, in a real caliber, at a realistic range, or else use horse pistols instead...

If the shooting is done as modern shooting, perhaps the fencing should be done as modern fencing, to 5 or 10 or 15 touches...<hr /></blockquote>I believe pentathlon uses air pistols, not rifles.

-m

fred · 07-19-2002, 10:05 PM

Um, a mounted messenger would be a little out of place today period, except maybe in Afghanistan.

It is in fact air pistols, and I imagine the idea is that it allows events to be conducted in a small space, and with a higher degree of safety. The swimming is done in a pool, not across the nearest river, either, and the equestrian event doesn't go cross-country.

It's all much like fencing, the history adds a little color for some people, and an irresistible desire to overanalyze in others.

You have to like triathlon in that regard - it can't be claimed to reflect any activity that once was conducted wearing floppy sleeves.

fred · 07-19-2002, 10:09 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by edew:

* The female athletes were all great looking. A lot of Kornikouva look-a-likes. (Rublevska is one. Grolichova is another.) There's lots of good looking guys, too, for those who might be interested.
<hr /></blockquote>Sounds like you would have been better off volunteering at the swimming event.... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

edew · 07-19-2002, 11:17 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Inquartata:
Well, in the scenario MP envisions, ie the activities a mounted messenger might need to perform, shooting would scarcely be done at ten meters, for one thing---I could hit a target with a rock at that range. Nor would it be done with a piddly little high-tech .22 or whatever they use nowadays, with balances and stabilizers and spotting scopes and whatnot. They should at least use a real rifle, in a real caliber, at a realistic range, or else use horse pistols instead...

If the shooting is done as modern shooting, perhaps the fencing should be done as modern fencing, to 5 or 10 or 15 touches...<hr /></blockquote>It's an air pistol and not high tech at all. There are no stabilizers or scopes. The shooter is allowed to wear an eye patch or blinders, ear plugs, and what not. But the gun is pretty generic, although the grip is, well, a pistol grip for pistols. The grip more-or-less conforms to the hand, but it isn't custom casted or anything. They have to shoot standing up, cannot brace the hand, and must shoot within 40 seconds.

Using rifles would make holding the event much tougher as it's not likely that they will allows rifles shot in Maples Pavilion.

edew · 07-19-2002, 11:18 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by fred:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by edew:

* The female athletes were all great looking. A lot of Kornikouva look-a-likes. (Rublevska is one. Grolichova is another.) There's lots of good looking guys, too, for those who might be interested.
<hr /></blockquote>Sounds like you would have been better off volunteering at the swimming event.... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> <hr /></blockquote>Haha. True, but I had to get to work.

Inquartata · 07-19-2002, 11:53 PM

Air pistols, eh? I stand corrected. Maybe I am thinking of biathlon...

Do they get one shot each, or the best/average of several?

veeco · 07-20-2002, 02:46 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Inquartata:
Air pistols, eh? I stand corrected. Maybe I am thinking of biathlon...

Do they get one shot each, or the best/average of several?<hr /></blockquote>They get 20 shots, and they add their scores for each shot to get a total score out of a maximum 200 points. Then they translate that into pentathlon points. A score or 172 gets you 1000 pentathlon points, and anything better than that gives you more and anything worse gives you less.

veeco · 07-20-2002, 02:53 PM

I thought that the men's fencing was pretty good. However as edew pointed out, it's really not easy to judge of a fencer's ability in one touch.

The game is much more athletic than the fencing we see at every NAC. There is little strategy even I saw some great touches, that must have been thought through. Those were pretty rare, even.

On the other hand they do all these events in one day, so anything longer for the bouts makes it harder to compete in all the events in one day. The fencing is already the event that takes the most time to complete.

These guys are really awesome swimmers on the other hand. I think that the main recruiting mechanism is probably through swimming, cause it seems hard to pick a runner out of a field and make them a swimmer (or pick a fencer and make them a swimmer).

In the riding, that's where the most discrepancy can be found in terms of skills (and horses, unfortunately). The Koreans, Russians, and Chinese being the worst riders that I saw.

The Brits, French, Czech, and Hungarians are all pretty good riders on the other hand. But that's a really tough event: the two times I watched the riding, the number one seed going into the riding got a really bad horse that was scared of the video screen. That horse knocked 3 people down, at the same spot on the course. I was terrible because these people had no chance of catching up in the next and final event, the running, even if they had been extremely good riders.

I did not get to see any running.

135711 · 07-20-2002, 07:22 PM

i tried shooting once, i thought it was great. i did 66 rounds, and only missed once, i got a lot of bullseyes, and everything else went in. just for 'fun' the guy let the targets spin on the line going horizontally, and i kept shooting in, it was a great feeling, then we sort of let the thing come on in, towards, me, and i kept shooting, my question is: How can i learn more about shooting on a competitive level? i really liked the sensation of those bullsyes. eric, you seem to have the most information, let me know.
[what do you guys do, go to events and stare at womens underwear or something?
curious in ohio]

[ 07-20-2002, 10:24 PM: Message edited by: 135711 ]

edew · 07-21-2002, 01:15 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by 135711:
[...]
what do you guys do, go to events and stare at womens underwear or something?
curious in ohio]<hr /></blockquote>Funny, the women fencers had no problems taking off their warm-ups and change to fencing britches in the gym (i.e., not in the women's room) to the view of all the volunteers and coaches and spectators. They had underwears on underneath.

Inquartata · 07-22-2002, 09:20 PM

Eh, they get 20 shots but only one touch! Typical...

D'Artagnan1673 · 07-23-2002, 06:57 AM

Here's my take on Epee, as qouted on my website.

Epee is a simular, but very different and distinct weapon in comparison to foil. If foil is a weapon in which conventions are observed in order that its action should be those of an ideal, read sane, swordfight, then epee is the exact opposite. In epee, there are no rules; just as in a real swordfight. The epee was first introduced around the turn of the century as a fencing weapon to teach a gentleman how to handle the psychological rigours of a true swordfight, something that the artificial feeling foil could never do. In the early years of competitive epee, bouts were fought out of doors for one touch, thus simulating as much as possible to effects of a real duel. The entire body is valid target area in the epee. In these one touch bouts, extreme caution was taken in all actions. If both fencers hit at the same time, a double kill was in effect; both fencers lost the bout and neither advanced to the next round of the tournament.

In the 1930's electrical points and wires were first introduced to fencing and the epee was make electric. Now touches were judged not by the human eye, but by a scoring machine. This has had positive and negative effects upon the weapon. On the positive side, attacks to the hand are registered where a judge may have missed. On the negative side, much of the caution of a "dry" epee bout is lost. Since the new rule in Epee is hit 1/25 of a second before the other guy, the mentality of epee has gone from "To hit, and to not be hit" to "Hit a split second before the other guy". Another change from the original epee is that bouts are now fought to 15 touches. This too has positive and negative effects. This has forced fencers to have a well rounded repertoire of strokes with the weapon; a single, "secret thrust" can only get you so far in 15 points. On the other hand, the 15 touches furthur removes the caution in epeeists style. More risks are taken since the value of each touch has been inflated.

Inquartata · 07-23-2002, 08:20 PM

Mmm, yes, but was a touch to the off arm, the shin, the cheek, or whatnot ever so crippling that it'd be fair to count it as a "double kill"? Duels often involved multiple wounds to both parties, but in epee one touch is an automatic finis? Not much more realistic than modern five- or fifteen-touch epee as far as I can tell...

edew · 07-23-2002, 10:46 PM

Here's some pix from the Modern Pentathlon...

Bertoli practicing during the shooting segment. Gretschichnikova is to her left: <img src="http://www.olagrande.net/users/edew/baycup/PHOTOS/bertoli_shoot.jpg" alt=" - " />

The fencing competition floor. Note the use of Faveros with numerical scoring displays (uses the remote control box to monitor and regulate the time and such):
<img src="http://www.olagrande.net/users/edew/baycup/PHOTOS/mpwc_fencing.jpg" alt=" - " />

There's more, but I though I'd keep the bandwidth low.

[ 07-24-2002, 07:32 PM: Message edited by: edew ]

oiuyt · 07-24-2002, 09:13 AM

Why doesn't MP use a steeplechase for the run? They run 3K which is the standard distance for steeplechase and going over fences/waterpits/etc would seem to fit the design of the event better.

-B