I really like the lesser known sports in the Olympics. When else are you going to see a fencing match? Or to be more accurate, it was the Women’s Saber competition that I was watching. If you haven’t seen these ladies, they wear a tin foil suit, which looks very uncomfortable. I hope they don’t go near any microwaves in those things. The purpose of the tin foil suit is because they are all wired up with electronics that will detect if and when they are touched by their opponent’s sword. They actually wear a battery pack on their back which is connected to the suit covering their entire upper body and also connected to their helmet which is also made of metal, and looks like they are about to be shot off into space. Any time your sword touches your opponent above the waist, a light goes off on the top of your helmet, like they are beaconing a ship home. Very cool. One of the other things you will quickly notice when watching a fencing match is a lot of yelling, not from the crowd, but from the competitors. At first, I thought, “Wow those swords really hurt!”. But as I continued to watch, the one yelling the loudest was usually the one scoring the points, which took me a while to figure out since they were wearing helmets. I then learned why. Back before all the fancy schmancy technology that tells who won the point first, this sport was judged by the naked eye of a guy standing a few feet away. And I must say, even when I figured out what to look for, I had no idea who was really getting the first touch. Many times, it almost seems simultaneous. So this is where the screaming would come in. Since it was a very subjective sport, when one of the swordsmen thought they had scored a point, they would scream very loudly and pump their fist, just in case the judge had any doubt as to who got the point. And this tradition has continued even into the technology age when it’s usually pretty easy for the judge to determine who really won the point, even without the screaming. But it is still interesting when both scream and fist pump at the same time and both of their heads seem to light up at the same time. Then the judge will actually go to a slow motion video replay to determine who got the point. Of course I guess the loser doing all the screaming felt pretty silly after that, but hey, she has a sword, so who’s going to laugh at her.

Revisiting my last entry, I think I would have been pretty good at fencing. I practiced many hours with my light saber when I was a kid. I never actually entered any official light saber competitions, but I won all the neighborhood championships. My biggest problem now would be that I would start off at a huge disadvantage considering the target area that my opponent is aiming for would be much larger than the one I was aiming for… Unless they have a heavyweight division in fencing like they do in ultimate fighting. If not, they should. I mean, come on, if synchronized diving can be a sport… I could be a two-sport athlete just like Bo Jackson.