cyranoVR's Journal: US Women's Saber: "D'oh"; US Men's Saber Fencer Takes Bronze

The last 48 hours have been pretty crazy. MrsVR almost single-handedly ran the Women's Foil and Women's Saber Team World Championships. Fluent French + Fencing Experience = Impressed F.I.E. Officials.

Meanwhile, I was going crazy continuously updating the event web site - with live updates of the matches in progress(!). Oh, and a big shout-out to analogx.com for their proxy server, which allowed us to share our dial-up (grrr) internet access when Windows Internet Connection Sharing didn't.

Last night was a big upset:

AP: Russia wins women's saber World Championship, Italy wins foil title

Russia upset the top-ranked U.S. women's saber team on Friday to win the World Championship at the New York Grand Prix of Fencing. Italy dominated the field en route to winning the women's foil team title.

The Americans led 40-37 going into the last encounter, but No. 4 Elena Netchaeva outscored No. 8 Emily Jacobson 8-3 to give the fifth-ranked Russians a 45-43 win.

"We did our best," Emily Jacobson said. "I know I did my best. Sometimes it doesn't work."
Full article...

Today was a bit better, though:

AP: Lee wins bronze in men's saber

NEW YORK -- Ivan Lee put in a lot of time preparing for the New York Grand Prix of fencing. And while not much time was spent practicing, he put in plenty of hours playing video games and just hanging out with friends.

In the end, the less-than-grueling preparation had the intended result: The refreshed, clear-thinking Lee won his first bronze medal in more than three years, losing to eventual champion Stanislav Podzniakov 15-9 Saturday in the men's saber semifinals.
Full Article...

Keeth Smart lost to Pozdniakov in the round of 32, unfortunately. Otherwise, he could have been in the top 8 as well.

Photo gallery from today's events here - captions courtesy yours truly.

Nice pictures

[Eluvias]

I think some of those pictures got on the mainstream news at ESPN.com.

Possible publicity?

Re:Nice pictures

[cyranoVR]

Ummmmm...links?

Note: They are probably Associated Press photos.

Re:Nice pictures

[Eluvias]

Sorry, my fault. They were AP photos [go.com], but pretty decent ones. Fencing is down at the bottom, and on the next page.