64 Days

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, but last week I was extremely busy with travel and competition in Seoul, Korea. I posted three times the week before so I will be posting three times this week as well to make up for not posting last week.

On wednesday I left for a World Cup in Seoul, Korea. Though I made the top 16, which is a decent result (though my world ranking is 11 so it is about where I was projected to place), I was disappointed by my performance in my last bout. In my last bout I lost to my teammate, Race Imboden (who ended up with his second career medal at a Senior World Cup so it was a good day for him),  but I did not fence the way I should have. I was not moving well and he was outsmarting me in most aspects of the bout. Though he fenced well and it is to his credit that he did so well, but I also did not fence the way I should have and nowhere near the caliber I will have to fence at to medal at the Olympics this summer. My last bout wasn't so strong, but my first two to make the top 16 were quite strong. Unfortunately since my other teammate (and club mate from San Francisco; Race is from New York) Gerek Meinhardt lost a couple bouts in the first round the day before, his seeding going into the second day was not too good. I had an exemption from the first day because of my top 16 world ranking, but drew him for my first bout of the day. It was a strong bout that went back-and-forth with about three or four lead changers, but in the end I was able to pull out a close 15-13 victory to make the top 32. I fenced extremely focused and collected, and I was able to carry that over to my next bout with Huang Liangcai, a strong Chinese fencer who has been on the Chinese Senior National Team for countless years. I won the bout in decisive fashion with a score of 15-6; a showing that  I wanted to also carry over to my next bout with Race. Unfortunately, the competition was poorly organized and my bout was almost 2 hours late. I guess my momentum stopped there and I was unable to pull through in my next bout.

Despite a bad loss to my teammate, I could not stay disappointed for long because I had to focus on the team event the next day. For our first bout to make the top 8, we drew Egypt. We fenced well and won the bout without much hassle but that put us against China, two-time defending team World Champions and a team we have never beaten (but had come within 5 touches; which in a team event is very close because bouts go to 45), to make the medal rounds. Though the team felt quite confident coming into the bout because we've been so close to beating them countless times, we were in for a very unpleasant surprise. As the anchor of our team, I fenced my first bout against China's number 3 fencer (Zhu Jun who had placed 4th in the Beijing Olympic Games, and was a silver medalist in the 2009 Senior World Championships) but something didn't seem right. My opponent, who lately had not been fencing well and seemed sluggish and disinterested on the strip this past season, fenced with a tenacity I had not seen since his silver medal finish at the World Championships. For the first time, this Chinese team was truly taking us seriously and from the very beginning I knew today's bout was going to be different than every other bout we've fenced with them before. I lost the first leg 5-2, but after the next couple bouts, the Chinese extended their lead to 15-6. With no American fencer even scoring 5 touches on an opponent yet, I stood up to fence Huang, the Chinese I had defeated strongly the day before. Though I had fenced hi the day before, the opponent that stood before resembled nothing of the one I had fenced the day before; he was much more composed, focused, and determined. I was not able to pull out a big run against him, and only was able to split touches, 5-5. With the rest of the team losing their bouts, going into the last bout we were losing 40-18; a deficit that seemed impossible to conquer, especially in three minutes. Though the bout seemed just about over, I was able to go on a 14-5 run against the strongest Chinese fencer, Lei Sheng. I fenced calm and collected and though I was not able to win the bout, at least I brought it to a somewhat respectable score (45-32). It was a bad bout for Team USA, but the Chinese Team was fencing with a tenacity we had never seen before, and one that we will be seeing at the Olympics. It was a good wake-up call because if we are going to beat China at the Olympics, that is the team we are going to have to beat. Not the disinterested, lackadaisical Chinese Team that we had come close to beating the past few years, but the amped up, focus Chinese Team that had just obliterated us. I was the only one on the team that was able to score 5 touches in a single bout that match, though it is hard to blame Race who was battling fatigue from a phenomenal bronze medal finish the day before. But if we are going to beat the Chinese Team and medal at the Olympics, we surely are going to fence much better than that as a team. We can't have only one single person pulling all the weight (in this case it was me, for I had scored 21 of our 32 touches the whole bout) against such a strong team, or any team at that. With a dismayed team that just got destroyed, our hopes were down and we couldn't win our next bout against Russia to fence out the 5-8 places. In the final leg of the bout, I was down 40-36 (or maybe 35 or 37, I don't quite remember) and was able to bring the score to 43-43, but I lost focus and couldn't bring in the last two touches as Russia won 45-43. I really blame myself for that loss because this is really the first time that I have down my team as the anchor. Though I came into that last bout down by a few touches and even though I ended up positive in the match (more touches scored than scored against throughout the whole bout, like me against China), I still lost the bout after bringing the team back to a position to win. This is the first time that this has happened to me and I took it really hard, because before this I had either won every high pressure situation in team events, or we were being blown out and didn't have any realistic chance to win. This was a good chance to grow though because just as any great athlete knows, "failure gives me strength" (to quote a great athlete himself: Michael Jordan). In the next, and last, bout against Ukraine, I was down 40-39 going into the last bout, but was able to pull through for Team USA with a 45-41 victory.

I am now back in San Francisco, and as you can tell by the late time of this post, suffering from a little bit of jet lag. I got off the plane yesterday, but that didn't mean I had a break, for I ended up spending a little more than 4 hours at the gym that same day. Today I studied some fencing videos and got back to fencing practice. Luckily I have a 3-4 week break before my next competition (I am actually skipping the next one in two weeks because it is the same day as my graduation), so it will give me more than enough time to focus on my training and conditioning.

64 days before the Games- with only a couple competitions left before the Olympics, I am starting to really feel something boil up inside of me. I need to take my game to the next level.