cyranoVR's Journal: Fencing Coverage on NBC!

8/14 1PM on CNBC - Men's Saber Indvidual
8/17 6PM on Bravo - Womens Saber Indvidual
8/19 2PM on MSNBC - Men's Saber Team
8/19 6PM on Bravo Men's Saber Team (replay)

This is incredible...MrsVR and I bought a TiVo especially for this occasion. Fencing! On! NBC! And covered like an any other sport(!!!).

And you gotta love NBC's blurb for the women's saber:Yale junior Sada Jacobson looks to become the first American woman ever to win an Olympic fencing medal.

Even though I am an Epee fencer, I am SOOOOOOO happy that they are broadcasting saber. Saber is far and away my favorite weapon to watch. The actions these guys do are simply unbelievable.

And if one of our guys (or ladies) makes the Gold Medal round...I don't know what I'll be doing...flipping out most likely.

I'm so excited I can barely contain myself! Fencing has never gotten coverage by NBC, let alone five hours. It's a dream come true.

( And yes, I realize that it might end up being mostly human interest about our athletes with only a few minutes of actual competition. But I'm hoping that NBC listened to popular criticism from last time around and focuses on the action! )

Also - check out http://fencingmedia.org/, especially the press clips page

Meanwhile...here are some clips of fencing from nationals to tide us over
Men's Foil: Dan Kellner vs. Jed Dupree (Semi-Final)
Men's Foil: Dan Kellner vs. Jon Tiomkin (Final)
Women's Saber - Mariel Zagunis vs. Sada Jacobson
Athlete Profile: Dan Kellner - lots of footage of action inside my club here.

Ooh, this might be a cool intro

[btlzu2]

I'm interested in watching this. I've never done any fencing or seen much of it before, but this is a good opportunity! Thanks for sharing the info.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Thank you!

[robi2106]

I poured over the local spread of coverage for the olympics and could not find fencing.

I am ordering digital cable (to go along with my digital internet) for this month specifically so I can get a bit more coverage. The problem is that hte dig cable comes with a specific receiver. That means I can't set the VCR to record a specific channel at a specific time because it only gets one input. Dang! I'll have to change to the channel and then set the timer to record. Lame!

Thanks for the info. Hopefully

Wow.

[Eluvias]

I am so pumped about this coverage as well. Fencing is just now starting to get some recognition, and it's well deserved.

I checked out those videoes of Kellner, Tiomkin, and Dupree. Now I am glad I switched to Epee. It's not that Foil is bad or anything, its just that the flicking is so much, it's at the point where it becomes like Saber.

Hopefully I'll have a VCR tape ready to record this stuff. I'll never forgive myself if I miss it.

Re:Wow.

[cyranoVR]

It's not that Foil is bad or anything, its just that the flicking is so much, it's at the point where it becomes like Saber.

Hmmm...I took another look at those videos...I have to disagree.

While there are certainly a lot of bad foilists who rely too much on sloppy marching attacks - and equally bad refs that call such actions as attacks (*shudder*), Kellner/Tiompkin/Dupree do not over-use flicks. Their lessons are about 75% direct actions and 25% cutting actions. In fact for every flick in that video, I