Women's Team Foil

[NGV]

Originally Posted by darius

Adjusted for expectations, our WF team was the best result in fencing (yes, WS was perfect, but folks had been talking sweep at least as early as Vegas). Maybe the federation should took a hard look at how the elite and developmental programs were handled in every weapon and see what each set of national coaches did with their time and money.

Ok, this makes no sense at all. First, while the WF team result exceeded expectations, the WF individual didn't - the only wins were against overmatched fencers in the round of 64, and Cross lost decisively against a fencer with a lower ranking. I don't see why we should arbitrarily focus on the team result rather than individual results when assessing performance.

Even in terms of the team result - yes, the WF team did great. However, they reached the final by two very narrow wins that could have easily gone the other way (three touches margin in both matches combined), and benefited from favorable seeding. What if Italy had come in seeded number two? The WF foil fencers and their coaches should personally be deeply proud of what they accomplished on that day, but anything can happen in an eight team single elimination - the idea that the USFA should review and revise its overall policies on the basis of three touches and a quirk of seeding is pretty bizarre.

It's also pretty bizarre to criticize the WS for failing to exceed "expectations." The only reason that expectations were higher was because WS has established a record of international success over the past years. Not only are you saying that a single match against Ukraine somehow outweighs that sustained success (including the individual medal sweep in Beijing), but you actually seem to be suggesting that their performance should be viewed more negatively due to the other recent accomplishments. Again, this makes no sense.

[fencerbill]

Originally Posted by Phrogger

So, the medal round video for WTF (love that acronym) haven't been posted yet, even though MTS has. What's up with that?

They probably can't find all of it. 3 of the 4 matches were shown just fine. The channel for the strip the US was fencing on was indicating the score of the US match in the scoreboard section but was showing 48 Kg women's judo for about half the fencing match. So all we could do was watch the score change and view the wrestling. It may never be available unless they record the camera channels. The channel for broadcasting the fencing video was incorrect, showing wrestling.

[fdad]

Regardless of results I'd love to know where the money went - and don't think there is necessarily a link between excess spending and results or expectations.

I do think the Women's Foil Team did not expect to come home with any medals, individual or team - the fact that they took Silver is huge. The Women's Sabre Team was expected to take home Gold.

[darius]

the idea that the USFA should review and revise its overall policies on the basis of three touches and a quirk of seeding is pretty bizarre.

Go back and read that again; I was expressing gratitude to the WF national coaching program for exceeding expectations, but doing it in a good manner, with a lack of drama. My (qualifier: not always firsthand) experience with other weapon programs has not necessarily been so positive.

It's also pretty bizarre to criticize the WS for failing to exceed "expectations." The only reason that expectations were higher was because WS has established a record of international success over the past years.

At what point did I criticize WS? My connection to that specific event is near and dear. WS clearly had the burden of expectation, and I'm willing to excuse what happened to the WST as an outlier. I'm also willing to excuse what happened to Emily as an outlier too; the Chinese fencer was fencing on fire. I don't think there were any particular expectations for Hanna or Erinn. Did the US put their best foot forward for Seth and Kelley?

(In light of today, clearly the MS program has done well too, but I'm not qualified to speak about that.)

At the end of the day, the national coaching staff should be reporting back to the USFA. The HPC should be assessing how each weapon program does its work, and make sure that effective choices are made. Seems like a no-brainer, yes?

darius

[fencerbill]

I don't believe there should be any blame for anybody or anything.

Some of the back and forth seems to be because of different ways people express sometimes the same thing in different ways and the ways people interpret what people say.

For myself;

I was pleasantly surprised that the WFT and MST did so well.

And I am sure Hungary was not pleased that their second seeded teams lost to seventh seeds.

There were lots of surprises in the individual events, a number of rather high seeds made it to the medal rounds.

We should be enormously pleased that our three Sabre women got through to the medal rounds.

We all know fencing is not an exact science. Even if fencer A beats fencer B 19 out of 20 times, the 20th time comes. It might be in the 20th bout, but it might be in the first bout also.