Moscow

Я люблю Москву

Last weekend, we, the GB Men's Senior Sabre team were in Moscow.  Warned of temperatures as low as -15 degrees Centigrade we'd all packed pretty heavily.  As it was, keeping cool was more of an issue than keeping warm! We were lucky in that it was never really below -5 outside, despite the 6ft of snow piled up next to the road and the fact it snowed each day we were there, but everywhere you went inside the heating was on full blast, even our room which had no obvious radiator or alternative heat source. So while we were able to deal with the cold, the heat, Moscow's extortionate prices (Moscow is the second most expensive city in the world after Tokyo), even the basic accomodation provided in our hotel, one thing near impossible to circumnavigate was Moscow's traffic.  I do not know how the city functions! It appears as though Moscovites have no regard for road traffic laws, traffic lights and junctions.  It took us 2 hours to get from the airport to the hotel, around 45 minutes to get the venue each morning and around 1 hour 45 minutes to get back - we later discoverd it was a distance of four metro stops, or around 5km.  Even going to bed in our room on the 25th floor we were cerenaded by the dulcit tones of car horns and the occasional 'smash' as a couple of vehicles collided.  

The venue: more like a Bond villan's hide-out than arena

The hotel itself did the job and little else.  Most confusingly we were due to stay in the Hotel Aquarium, or so the Russian provided details told us, however the bus dropped us at the Hotel Astrus, and that is where we stayed, the only indication that this might be the same hotel being on a pen at the alternative desk we had to use to check in.  I have included a couple of pictures from the hotel below so that, in case you had thought otherwise, you can see the glamourous lives we international athletes live. 

The competition itself did not go quite to plan.  I did not fence particularly well during the individual event and contrived to win no hits in the middle 4m of the piste and also go behind in each fight.  Unfortunately my team mates did not do too much better than me and no-one made the business end of the competition, the last 64 on the second day.  The results haven't been what we would have wanted this season so far, but I am sure we can redress this in the second half of the season, when it counts towards Olympic Qualification.  We therefore had a day off on the Saturday before the team event and for once did a little sightseeing.  We took the Metro down to Red Square where we all posed in front of St Basel's Cathedral, saw the Kremlin, Lenin's Mausoleum and also ventured into GUM - perhaps the most expensive and beautiful shopping centre I've ever been in.  We also featured in some sort of video saying the words Я люблю Москву (I love Moscow). 

Great Britain have not entered a Men's Sabre Team into an event for a year, despite it being an Olympic discipline, because of funding issues.  So with no ranking, but determined to do well Alex O'Connell, Neil Hutchison, James Honeybone and I took to the piste on the Sunday.  We fenced a tricky Japanese team in the last 32, overcame the differnce in seeding, hit them hard at the start, opened up a big lead and comfortably closed out the match.  In the last 16 we fenced a German side that included the World Number 1, and one which had come second at the last two World Cups, and despite another strong start the Germans were able to pull away at the end.  China, the 5th seeds, were our opponents in the first play off match, a team which included the 2008 Olympic Champion.  Again we started the match very strongly and were 30-30 before the Chinese's greater experience began to show and they pulled away to win 45-35.  After that match we had to pick ourselves up quickly to fence Iran.  This time there was a very different pressure on us, we felt we had to win and perhaps constricted by this got embroiled in a close match and survived a late Iranian comeback to win 45-44.  This led to a clash with perennial opponents Poland.  Unfortunately on the day Poland had a little too much for us and we lost 45-36 ending up 14th. A very respectable position considering we started the day as bottom seeds and certainly something we will be looking to build on in the future.  

I spent most of the team day as the reserve, subbing on from the bench, which means that I did not get to fence as much as I'd have liked to.  Subbing on is always difficult as generally you are trying to turn around a match, and I came on to fence Limbach (World Number 1), Hartung (former Cadet and Junior World Champion), Zhong (Olympic Champion) and Koniusz (European Olympic Qualifier winner and top 25 fencer) - certainly not easy opponents.  Now I need to get myself in the position where I'll be starting these matches.  

Breakfast!

Our room on the 25th Floor

Tickets

Only 500 days to go until the London Olympic Games get under way.  I can remember the moment London were awarded the Games in 2005 as if it were yesterday.  Time has flown past and the next 400 days we have left, the qualifying period, are going to go even faster.  

I thought I would leave a note here to say that should I make it to the London Games, I will be competing in the Men's Sabre (FE003) at the Excel Centre and possibly also the Men's Sabre Team (FE013), which in my opinion will be the most entertaining event to watch. I've copied the link to the Olympic fencing programme below, which includes ticket prices.  Right now our top fencer is Richard Kruse in the Men's Foil (FE007), and our Men's Foil Team (FE017) are regarded as our best medal prospect, but I'd quite like to steal their thunder there! You have 6 weeks to decide what you want, I'm hoping that I won't be needing my tickets! 

http://media.ticketmaster.com/en-gb/img/sys/tournament/london2012/oly-fencing.pdf

Inches

Life's this game of inches - Al Pacino (Any Given Sunday)

One year before Varsity, the captain of the Cambridge team made us watch the inspirational American Football film Any Given Sunday.  This perhaps would rank as a generic sports film if it weren't for Al Pacino's speech, as Coach Tony D'Amato, to his team at half time in the play-off final.  The speech has been widely reused in various contexts but usually, to my knowledge, by sports teams, like a Rocky montage, to inspire them before a big match such as Varsity.  After last weekend, the words resonate with me. 

Pacino's character describes life and football as a game of inches: because the margin of error is so small, I mean one half step too late or too early and you don't quite make it.  One half second too slow or too quick and you don't quite catch it before concluding that the inches we need are all around us.  

  

Last weekend, I fenced in the Budapest Grand Prix, traditionally always the hardest of the World Cup events on the calendar.  Furthermore, I fenced well with good intensity winning three poule fights of six, narrowly losing two.  My first fight was against the Frenchman Sanson, an experienced fencer, formally in the World Top-16 and who also won Gold at the Beijing Olympics in the Men's Sabre team event; I beat him comfortably. Getting off to a positive start really helped me and gave me a boost in confidence for the rest of the poule.   I received a bye into the last 96 where I met the Brazilian Agresta, who lives and trains in Italy.  Despite being 8-4 up at the break, I slumped to 13-10 down, before recovering to lead 14-13 and then fall at the final hurdle 15-14.  I was gutted, to come so close and not finish the job was devastating.  Reaching the last 64 and winning my first world cup points of the year was my primary target before reappraising on the second day.  To not achieve this was disappointing.  It also hurt a lot more than the disaster I had in Italy a couple of weeks ago. 

The truth is on that final hit I was probably one half step too late in stepping back and one half step too fast in riposting.  But the fight was not won and lost solely on the one hit but shortly after the break when he won a series of hits, that perhaps I should have stopped sooner.  However, such soul-searching cannot help me now, I must take the positives that I fenced an awful lot better than I have done all season and a couple of things are starting to 'click'.  I also know that Olympic qualifying begins in April and so this competition does not really count.  What is clear is that these competitions are harder than ever as we enter the Olympic qualification cycle and that the margins between us competitors are so small.  Probably three or four times as many fights are won 5-4 as 5-1 and 5-0.  On any given day you have to fence to your best and hope that you make use of the inches around you, and the truth is that the fencers in the last 64 are not that much better but rather they made use of those inches. 

In training this week and next, as we prepare for the Moscow World Cup and the end of the first half of our season I'll be looking for those inches because in the words of Pacino: when we add up all those inches its going to make the difference between winning and losing...

 

Varsity

It might sound ridiculous but the truth is, that sport in Cambridge exists to beat Oxford.  A year is measured by nothing more, nothing less.  That is all; all that really matters is beating the old enemy in the annual Varsity Match.    

Most sports fans in the UK will have heard of the Varsity Rugby match at Twickenham, the Varsity Boat Race (to give it its full title) on the Thames at Easter and even perhaps the Varsity Cricket match, held each summer at Lords, however it is possible that they do not realise that every sport has its day and its Varsity match, including Hang-Gliding.  For most sports that all-important match takes place during the traditional 'Varsity Games' period mid-February and fencing is no different.  Last Saturday the Exams Schools on the New Museum Site Cambridge played host to the 104th Fencing Varsity Match.  

In the run up the competitors eat Varsity, drink Varsity, sleep Varsity and live Varsity.  There is endless head-scratching, conversations about team selection, team order, tactics, targets, and permutations.  The preparation for the following year's Varsity Match starts the day after the next one.  How many sporting teams and captains are defined by their success in one match? The victors live on in perpetuity, their names as victors inscribed upon the Varsity shield since 1936; for the losers, nothing but forgotten. 

I only won the Varsity match once, when I was captain in 2009, by a record score in an undefeated season.  In both 2007 and 2010 we lost only one match all year, including in all the BUCS fixtures; we were recognised as the best team in the country, winning Southern Premiership and the BUCS Championship and yet we lost the Varsity match against all odds and the seasons were thus deemed a failure.  In 2008 under Alex O'Connell's captaincy we came so close it hurt, in a match we should never have been in; I still remember the bitter and harsh taste of defeat that day.  The pressure is immense; the rewards eternal; the day, beautiful.

This year the match was always going to be close, with Cambridge coming out as victors in their previous league match by just the one hit.  Sadly on the day the greater experience of the Oxford team shone through, particularly in their sabre team.  After a nervous and enthralling epee match, which in the end Cambridge edged 45-43, Oxford acheived a convincing 45-21 win in the sabre.  The Cambridge sabreurs came back strong in the end after being in a potentially lethal position at 30-8 but spectators were left rueing that a fine performance came too late.  That aside Cambridge had a much stronger foil team and confidence was still high, but the pressure was huge as Cambridge had to limit their opponents to 23, ultimately a task too great.  But the Cambridge boys can take comfort in the knowledge that while most of the Oxford team of Varsity veterans are likely to depart, the Cambridge team will be almost entirely unchanged, more experienced and hungry for revenge next year.  Supporting was strange but I am already looking forward to next year and travelling to Oxford to beat them there.  GDBO.

2009 Team and Old Blues

2009
A L Crutchett
L Cox-Brusseau
V Dalibard
Z Eaton-Rosen
T Most
A O'Connell
D Ryan
D Summerbell