Internationals

[Mischa]

Hey all,

I was wondering, how many of you here fence at an international level, and for which countries? Maybe you could also tell us a little bit about your career too?

I'll start it off:

Name BALEN Mischa
Country ISR
Weapon Foil
Age 16
Club Joseph's

[shamshir]

My brief international career was cut short by the recent CFF (Canadian) policy that you actually have to be *good* now to compete internationally.

Right before they instituted that rule (which is a great policy, in my opinion, and should have been implemented long ago) I fenced at the World Cup GP in Warsaw (for sabre). I even made top 64, though I only did because the entire French delegation (17 fencers) didn't show up due to the Air France strike. Because it was a GP I got a whopping 3 points and briefly made a debut on the FIE rankings in the 170-ish range!

The only non-Canadian fencers I've ever beat have been Americans, a guy from Taipei, an Argentinian and (get this) Martin Kindt, a German. I think he was like low-20's in the last World Championships. He must've sucked 2 years ago for me to have beaten him (but the ref threw a BS call my way).

As for serious international fencers, I don't know if there are that many on these boards, though I must say the calibre of fencers here seems to be in general higher than that on the rec.sport.fencing newsgroup.

My guess is that real international competitors don't know about this board, and it wouldn't matter anyway because almost all of them are not English-speaking.

[FlamingDeth]

...actually have to be <i>good</i> to compete internationally? Novel idea, but it would bar me from doing so. Y'know, if I was actually Canadian.

As it stands, I have yet to fence in any international tournaments. I've been to a couple of national ones, but even then I placed so low that it isn't worth mentioning. But hey, at least I have the t-shirts saying that I was there!

[afc fencer]

I fenced in one international event so far. It was in France and i did pretty bad, i only won one bout. But it was fun and i learnd alot.

[MHS Fencer]

I've done some of the North American world cups - nothing in Europe though - not good enough, yet (give me a few years). I've had some mixed results (in my terms), no 64s, but just missed it in Havana and had a good run of it in Montreal this year until I had to fence to make the 64 - the guy I faced ended up in second. It was good experience though, and I wasn't completely massacred (15-8, had some good touches, but he was clearly in control - I also helped him rush the bout).