Fencers to Watch

[eac]

Yea, Hong Kong, I can't find any, I guess I will ask my coach for any information.

Well it just shows the quicktime logo but nothing shows up, the only thing that works was the korea junior and cadet competition.

I use firefox, I tried with IE, it didn't work too.
I have Quicktime 7.0.3 btw.

It's true, some things don't work anymore. For instance, they broke the CIP Men's Foil semifinal; it used to work under a really annoying streaming format, but now it doesn't. However, the USFA Nationals should work, and the Junior/Cadet WCs certainly had a significant amount of interesting footage. Some of the movies have URLs of the form

www.fencingchannel.tv/some/path?view=[THE REAL URL OF THE VIDEO]
Then if you go to the real URL of the video it might be easier for you to view (Try saving the video onto your hard disk and then playing it from there.).

[BoutAfrica]

The biggest dissapointment is your (the USA's) own Brendan Myers. He came 3rd in Junior mens foil in 2004 when he was only 15. He was amaxingly talented but threw everything away, or so I'm told.

Last I heard he was trying to get back into form, hope he does.

[edew]

His partying talents are still way up there...

[Bill the Blade]

There is a young man that fences foil in Birmingham, AL by the name of Weng, (sp?), that is 14/15 and probably 6'4" that I saw do some wonderful things with the blade. His game was very much oriented towards the old timings, so it has taken some time to adjust. I understand his coach is getting help from the Chinese national coach and that may help him.

Daniel Trapani, Jacob Osborne and Dillon Smith in Cadet Epee are very good fencers. They have complete games, and their weaknesses or losses on the National level usually come against someone that are having one of those outside the box and outerbody experiences with their point. Peter French and Edward Hurme in Cadet/Junior epee have the same type of games. What I liked about them is that you did not often hit them twice with the same move because they adjusted.

All of Greg's kids in California are a pleasure to watch in foil as they progress. They are often fencing 2nd, 3rd intention without making the mistake of thinking about it too much. That is difficult to do.

[smurfette]

In women's epee: Hannah Safford. Watch out.

[Slim]

His partying talents are still way up there...

If he was 15 in '04, he's 17 now...and he has a "rep" for partying? That's not good.

About some of the others though, it makes me wonder how someone like Lu/Bravo/Massialas can keep up that sort of pace. Junior points the first season of Y12? Wow. The difficult thing for them to have to deal with is that at this point they have no where to go but down. Not them specifically, but anyone who has accomplished what they have at such a young age.

For anyone in a similar situation, will a bad season or two blow them up and get them discouraged? Will puberty change their physical abilities? Will they eventually just crack and get burned out?

[eac]

About some of the others though, it makes me wonder how someone like Lu/Bravo/Massialas can keep up that sort of pace. Junior points the first season of Y12? Wow. The difficult thing for them to have to deal with is that at this point they have no where to go but down. Not them specifically, but anyone who has accomplished what they have at such a young age.

Actually if you look at the results for long-ago Y10/Y12 competitions, the winners of those are frequently still up there 6-8 years later in the Cadet and Junior categories. Just looking at the results for the San Jose Junior PCC events since 98, you see a lot of currently well-known names popping up. Ali Glasser, Clinton Kershaw, Doris Willette, etc. Of course, some people don't continue fencing, possibly because they relied on the mask-covering small-target-worming style, but in general people frequently do continue from youth success to the higher levels.

[Poulet]

About some of the others though, it makes me wonder how someone like Lu/Bravo/Massialas can keep up that sort of pace. Junior points the first season of Y12? Wow. The difficult thing for them to have to deal with is that at this point they have no where to go but down. Not them specifically, but anyone who has accomplished what they have at such a young age.

For anyone in a similar situation, will a bad season or two blow them up and get them discouraged? Will puberty change their physical abilities? Will they eventually just crack and get burned out?

Have you watched Bravo fence? His "physical abilities" consist of going back with a constant circle-four, covering nearly his entire chest with his head and relying on his chestplate to deflect any attack.

[eac]

Have you watched Bravo fence? His "physical abilities" consist of going back with a constant circle-four, covering nearly his entire chest with his head and relying on his chestplate to deflect any attack.

That's more true of Alexander Massialas than Nobuo. I fence with both of them in practice, and Nobuo actually fences rather intelligently, closing out with opposition in different lines in remises or counterattacks, and making real parry-ripostes. Alexander is much wigglier and more mask-coveringish.