You have GOT to be kidding me

[epeemike81]

Taken from a Columbia website. link at bottom.


Men's Fencing Falls Victim To Equipment Failure, Women Beat Harvard
By Phil Wallace
Spectator Senior Staff Writer


If the Columbia men's fencing team wants to win its third straight Ivy title, it will likely have to share the trophy.

In one of the lower days in recent Light Blue fencing history, the Columbia men (0-1) fell 14-13 to a rising Harvard program. It was the team's first loss to the Crimson in over 25 years.

The women's team (1-0) was able to stave off Harvard (0-1), winning a wild 15-12 match that saw its epée team sweep the Crimson 9-0 and its foil team get swept 9-0.

Afterward though, the talk was not so much about the men's loss or the women's victory but about equipment and administrative problems that hampered the Lions on Sunday.

Columbia has not yet received its annual shipment of fencing supplies, forcing the team to use last year's used equipment. Much of that equipment is damaged or non-functional due to regular fencing wear and tear. The result was a team that needed to share weapons, body cords, and other gear. Several fencers entered the meet with only one or no functional weapon instead of the standard three weapons.

"It's never a good feeling when you only come to a meet with one blade," co-captain Kevin Eriksen said, who was one of those fencers with less equipment than standard.

Additionally, none of the first-year fencers were cleared to compete by the NCAA Clearinghouse until late Friday afternoon, leading to some uncertainty in preparations during the week.

"Everyone who needed to be cleared eventually got cleared," junior epéeist Michael Dreyfus said. "It didn't really affect us, but it was on our minds."

Junior epéeist Michael Yablon was among those most affected by the equipment problems. He came to meet with only one adequate epée and two other epées that he described as "terrible" with low-quality blades. Yablon had tested all three the day before, and all were fully functional. However, a screw became loose on the final touch of his second bout--a 5-3 victory over Harvard's Michael Soto.

Yablon was not aware of the problem and did not test his equipment prior to his match with Harvard's nationally-ranked fencer Julian Rose. Yablon and Rose faced off in the final bout of the day with the score tied 13-13, and Yablon immediately had to start the bout down 2-0. This was because Yablon came to the strip with his epée that was missing a screw, and the director gave him a yellow card warning. Yablon then turned to one of his backup weapons, and that one failed to work. He was red carded, and Rose was awarded a point. Yablon's second backup weapon was also broken, and he received a second red card. The match had to be stopped for several minutes while Yablon's primary epee was repaired so that he could even fence Rose with a two-touch deficit. Rose won the bout 5-1.

"We're supposed to get equipment early in the season," Yablon said. "I take responsibility for not checking if the screw was in my tip, and I don't want to pin our loss on the athletic department, but they do so little for us that when it comes to something they are supposed to do and it's not done, it's frustrating."

Apparently, there were several bureaucratic mistakes that resulted in the equipment not arriving. Among the most egregious was Columbia's failure to pay Blue Gauntlet Fencing Gear for last year's shipment, a problem that was only discovered in recent weeks. Blue Gauntlet had refused to send this year's supply until Columbia's bill was paid. Co-Head Coach George Kolombatovich notified the captains of the reason for the team's absent new equipment last Friday. However, Kolombatovich would not comment specifically on the athletic department mixup.

"There were some administrative problems that I will take responsibility for, but it is no individual's fault," Kolombatovich said. "We lost the meet because Harvard was better than us today. All the rest is garbage."

As for the men's matches, the saber team won 5-4 thanks largely to a 3-0 performance by sophomore Paul Reyfman. The first-time starter drew attention by defeating two national top-10 fencers, Tim Hagamen and David Jakus.

The men's foil and epee teams both dropped 5-4 matches to Harvard. Sophomore foilist Nico Jaspers headlined that group by going 3-0 with wins over the Crimson trio of Jon Carter, Phil Sherrill, and Ben Schmidt.

The foil team sorely missed sophomore star Jeremy Sinkin who was fencing in a World Cup in Madrid this weekend. Sinkin had not planned to miss the Harvard meet, because it was originally scheduled for early December. However, after the meet was moved up to yesterday, Sinkin could not change his plans to go to Madrid.

"Harvard has a very strong team, but the team did a very good job. If Sinkin would have been here, it would have been opposite result," Co-Head Coach Aladar Kogler said.

Also in a World Cup in Italy was first-year Emma Baratta, who had the same conflict with the change in schedule as Sinkin. The Lions were able to pull their weight without Baratta in women's saber though. In fact, the Columbia women's 15-12 victory was largely due to the vast improvement in the depth of the saber squad.

First-year sabreur Veronica Padula made her sizzling Light Blue debut with a 3-0 sweep of the Crimson. Senior Annemarie Gallagher also stepped up, going 2-1 on the day.

"We had high quality saber. The girls did a good job," Kogler said. The women's epée squad had a banner day, going 9-0 with their trio of senior co-captain Monica Conley, junior Kim Bush, and sophomore Solmaz Firoz. The clean sweep by epée completely offset the struggles of the women's foil squad that went 0-9.

"It's a good step toward the Ivy rank," Bush said. "It was a good feeling to have epée come out strong. We're really melding together and coming together as a squad."

"I'm a little disappointed," Blount said of the women's foil team. "There was a lot of pressure; it was just a really difficult day. I thought we could have stepped it up."

The women remain in the hunt for the Ivy title but will still need to overcome difficult challenges from Yale, Princeton, and Penn. The men, however, need some help the rest of the way.

"It was a good wake-up call for us," co-captain and sabreur Andrew Sohn said. "None of us expected it to be easy, but we hyped it up too much when we actually had the best team. They had nothing to lose. It's not our ability; it's just a bad day. Now we're looking to beat every team."

"A lot of it was mental with our squad," Eriksen said. "There were the Clearing House difficulties, there was the talk of [Harvard's] recruiting classes, we haven't lost to Harvard in 25 years, [and] we let that get to us."

"I'm not disappointed. This match, you should not cry," Kogler said. "It will be the same approach [for the rest of the season]. It will not influence them negatively. [Today] it was a knife and a gun machine."

Article

-m

[Inquartata]

Heh, another reason to fence sabre.

But seriously, wouldn't you just love to have their "problem" of having all your equipment furnished for you? Yet they can still have enough of a feeling of entitlement to complain about the "poor quality" of it...

[Peach]

Mike Yablon (whom I've known for a while) should have all his own equipment after years of fencing--I wonder why he didn't? Or am I assuming wrongly that he is permitted to fence with his own equipment?

I know a number of the fencers mentioned, and most of them don't suffer from entitlement. It sounds like perhaps the school was tight for money to pay their bills. . .

Good job, Nikki Padula!

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by Peach
Mike Yablon (whom I've known for a while) should have all his own equipment after years of fencing--I wonder why he didn't? Or am I assuming wrongly that he is permitted to fence with his own equipment?

I know a number of the fencers mentioned, and most of them don't suffer from entitlement. It sounds like perhaps the school was tight for money to pay their bills. . .

Good job, Nikki Padula!

Why have his own equipment?? Columbia buys each fencer new equipment each year! The one year they're shipment of brand spankin' new equipment was missing, they didn't know WHAT to do. apparently none of them remember how to armor....

-m

[DHCJr]

EpeeMike, you are so right. George know better than that. An Armorer is worth their weight in gold and with Joe and Ted so close, they could have trained a squad of Armorers.

I was happy when we were able to afford a dozen to 18 blades of each weapon each year, a half-dozen guards, masks and lame every two or three years and we never fielded less than 3 weapons per fencer in the 25 years I was Armorer for Long Beach State. It is a wonder what money will do. You never think it will end. I think they should start thinking of an Armorer.

[edew]

My understanding is that George requires all his fencers to self-armor their weapons and body cords. Lames are not things that a fencer is expected to fix, so they do get new ones when needed. Otherwise, they all self-armor their stuff. At least that's what I've been told.

[DHCJr]

Eric,

I agree the fencers should know how to fix their own equipment. I would work with the fencers and have clinics, because their were time they would go to individual tournaments and I wouldn't be there.

I was just saying a good Armorer would have helped with that problem and it wouldn't have been a major cost for a team that buys all new equipment every year.

[135711]

I have requested workshops repeatedly on this very topic. all new fencers, or fencers between 1-2 years, should be taught how to repair their own stuff. They can't learn it by osmosis. Someone has to care enough about their salle and their team in order to teach people how to do something besides stand there in a white uniform and look good. repairing is dirty work, no one want's to do it for an entire club, but if you don't take the time to teach this skill as part of your teaching curriculum, then you can only blame yourself if the team doesn't win......but the fact is, they don't care (see thread about ohio)

[Mergs]

To the Columbia's Mens team.

Would you like some cheese with that? You screwed up and didn't check your equipment beforehand. This would be like Sadaam crying foul that he couldn't adequately fight in the air because all his planes were grounded and broken. If you're going to show up for a fight, you had better be prepared!

No sympathy from this quarter.

[Purple Fencer]

Originally posted by Mergs
Sadaam crying foul that he couldn't adequately fight in the air because all his planes were grounded and broken.

This, of course, would be a GOOD thing for us! I can just see W saying, "Sorry, Sadaam...sucks to be you!"

I'm with Mergs on the fencing team...they blew it like a porn star!

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by 135711
I have requested workshops repeatedly on this very topic. all new fencers, or fencers between 1-2 years, should be taught how to repair their own stuff. They can't learn it by osmosis. Someone has to care enough about their salle and their team in order to teach people how to do something besides stand there in a white uniform and look good. repairing is dirty work, no one want's to do it for an entire club, but if you don't take the time to teach this skill as part of your teaching curriculum, then you can only blame yourself if the team doesn't win......but the fact is, they don't care (see thread about ohio)

The fact is that ALL of the fencers on the Columbia team have been fencing for well more than 1-2 years. They should know how to armor.

-m

[civiltech]

I had a chance to see the columbian, and chilean teams for sabre and epee in Winnipeg, MB during the Pan -Am games.

Granted it was a couple of years ago, the south americans are a powerhouse! The Chilean team decimated Canada!

I believe the columbians left respectfully with some medals around there necks.

It is unfortunate that teams can have such bad equipment. It is expensive here. Imagine what demographic group you have to be in down in some of these countries.

[JEC]

The thread is about Columbia University from N.Y.C.,NY. A place that can afford to provide new equipment to their fencers, and whose fencers blame bad results to the tardiness of their new annual delivery, perhaps from just a few blocks away.

Incidently, the Centroamerican games are currently being held in El Salvador. The three teams with most medals are Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico. For further info EsgrimaMEX

[civiltech]

Wow!!

Sorry about that! The way everyone was carrying on, I thought everyone was talking about developing countries!

My aplogies!

[Purple Fencer]

Originally posted by civiltech
Wow!!

Sorry about that! The way everyone was carrying on, I thought everyone was talking about developing countries!

OOohhhh...like Canada?

*ducking and weaving*

[graham]

Originally posted by Purple Fencer
OOohhhh...like Canada?

*ducking and weaving*

Hey now Sam - we try to be quiet next door neighbors and not get too upset at you (at times our frustration may slip out and we may call certain individuals morons, but I hope that is understandable and not taken too much to heart by the rest of you guys), but calling us a Developing Country is hardly playing fair.

GT

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by graham
Hey now Sam - we try to be quiet next door neighbors and not get too upset at you (at times our frustration may slip out and we may call certain individuals morons, but I hope that is understandable and not taken too much to heart by the rest of you guys), but calling us a Developing Country is hardly playing fair.

GT

No argument there.....

I haven't seen any signs of development.

-m

[civiltech]

My comment was not meant to be sarcastic! I am truly sorry for my misunderstanding.

I don't want to get into a war of words over it.

Regards!!

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by civiltech
My comment was not meant to be sarcastic! I am truly sorry for my misunderstanding.

I don't want to get into a war of words over it.

Regards!!

war of words????

Chill out. We were just kidding. We all have plenty of respect for our canuck neighbors.

-m

[graham]

Chill out??? I think that is our problem. For eight months of the year we are so chilled out we have to get to the venues a full day early in order for our gear to warm up

GT