Sunday 30 October 2011

Back to Europe

So, it has been a long time since I updated my blog.  The last month has been very busy indeed and only now am I finding a little time to gather my thoughts.  My last post reported my strong start to the domestic season; this blog aims to fill in the gaps between then and now...

A week after the Bristol Open, myself and several of the other fencers in the GB Senior Team headed down to Truro in Cornwall for the pre-Worlds training camp.  The Chinese fencing team, including 2008 Olympic Gold Medallist Man Zhong, were due to join us there in what promised to be a high level camp offering excellent sparring.  Unfortunately, the Chinese never made it and rumours reached us about visa issues.  While it was disappointing the Chinese chose not to come it was still a good opportunity to get the team together and to train hard for the week.  Unlike the Great Britain foil teams who are centralised, the sabreurs, and the men in particular, are scattered all over the country at our various clubs so spending the week together is a rare occurrence.  However, I think we made good use of our time and the week of intense sparring away from home was a good break from the usual routine - I think it is always good to mix things up slightly to keep things fresh and maintain intensity levels. 

After returning from Cornwall I trained through the next couple of weeks during the World Championships.  It is important at this time of year to get a really good training block under my belt in order to be properly prepared for February when my 'world championships' occur when Olympic Qualifying resumes.  I also started teaching at Brentwood School, covering some Classics lessons, which was much more enjoyable than I thought it might be.  After half-term I will be teaching Classics at Haileybury School on a temporary basis.  I think it is good to keep my mind occupied during the day to make sure it is 'switched on' when I go to training in the evening.  Also as a self-funding athlete it is good to have a little extra income, which will support me through the run of competitions I am currently embarking on.  

The first weekend of half term was also the weekend of the Flemish Open, a competition I have done now for the last three years as preparation for the World Cup season.  It doubles as a European Satellite event and so there are also world cup points on offer for reaching the final tableaux, which are even more desired in Olympic year as it is. The individual event was on the Sunday, preceded by a team competition on the Saturday.  Last year, representing my club, Brentwood and fencing alongside Julian Ghosh, Alex O'Connell and Ricardo Bustamente we won this prestigious event; this year Julian and I returned to try and defend our title alongside my brother, Alex Crutchett and Tom Mottershead.  In total there were 26 teams including the Belgian, Brunei, Austrian, Swiss, Danish, and Belgian U23 national teams and two strong teams from Hungary and Poland.  After the poules we were seeded 1 and fought our way through to the gala final, where we were edged out 45-39 by the Poles who had a team that included Beijing Olympian Marcin Koniusz.  I fenced very strongly all day, finishing for the team, staying calm and controlling my fights.  While we went to bed disappointed not to win, I think we were also happy with how we had fenced throughout the day and realised that we had finished higher than a number of very strong teams.  

On the Sunday however I did not fence well.  I did not move up and down the pieste nearly as well as I had done the previous day and felt much more tense.  The result was not what I was looking for and I left bitterly disappointed.  However as a training competition I have to acknowledge what I learned.  At some point Saturday I hurt my left leg slightly, it certainly bothered me on Sunday, and reflecting back upon this I know I did not warm down after the team event and perhaps if I had it would not have been so painful the following day; the world cup competitions take place over two days so I need to remember to do this at these events.  In addition my new Great Britain tracksuit went missing early on during the individual event, this distracted me to such an extent that I partly forgot why I had come to Belgium and spent much more time searching for it and feeling angry about its disappearance than I did thinking about my fencing; the lesson to be learnt is to focus on what is important and block out the other distractions while I am still competing.  (As an aside rumour has it that my tracksuit might have been spotted in Brunei this week).  I am not making excuses for my performance which was still below par and well below my best.  Given the improvement I feel I have made over the last couple of months the result was especially disappointing and I let myself down.  It has taken me a week to recover from this event.  I was unable to train before Thursday as I was too exhausted, and emotionally I admit that I have been sulking a little all week.  However, come Monday I will have moved on and will be focusing on my next event in Amsterdam in a couple of weeks.  I will be doing a number of these events between now and February as I still have learning to do...