Friday - August 03, 2012

The Best Part Of the Olympics you’re Not Seeing

Are you watching the fencing?

Probably not.

It’s hard to watch on TV. The blades move faster than the TV camera can follow them and the judges speak in French.

It’s hard to understand the rules, of which there are many, and quite a few of them are really hard to understand even if you are a fencer yourself.

You won’t see gigantic muscular people performing superhuman feats of strength and endurance. You won’t see microscopic people twisting turning and spinning as they go flying through the air. You won’t see much of anything really, but what you see will be in a brightly lit and colorful environment, like watching some kind of sporting event held at the local dance club.

And the announcers can explain it all to you, and it still won’t make much sense.

But there has been incredible drama on the fencing strip at this Olympics.

• Bad judging cost South Korea’s Shin A-Lam her shot at the gold and silver medals. The referee kept resetting the time clock to a second even though in any normal circumstance this next picture is that of a victory:
  

  The fastest human eyeblink is around 125ms. The fastest reaction time to an external stimulus is about twice that: 250ms or a quarter second. In the fencing sport of epee, a hit has to last at least 10ms to be valid, but if the other fencer lands a hit within 40ms of that hit, then both hits are valid. Epee models the duel, and in a duel it is certainly possible for both swordsmen to get wounded. But to keep it fair, once the time between my hit and your hit is more than half the blink of an eye, then it is no longer a double hit and I’ll get the point if I hit you before you hit me. But even though the rules allow for double hits, no match can end in a tie, so unless there is priority the last double hits are thrown out. Priority??? Yes. An odd rule put in so that no match ends in a tie when the clock runs out. A halt is called when only 1 minute remains on the clock, and a coin is tossed. The winner is given priority, which means that IF the match score is tied AND that tie score is less than the number of points the match is being played to (usually 5 or 15, but sometimes only 1) AND the clock runs out, THEN the person with priority is declared to be the winner. Although I think that for the Olympics, what they do is add some extra seconds but they keep the priority. So you get 30 seconds of overtime, try and score as much as you can, and THEN if the clock runs out without a single winning touch then the priority person wins. It is a bit confusing.

  But that is not what happened here. The ref (aka the President) kept throwing out the final double touch and resetting the clock to 1 second. Unlike swimming or any of the racing sports, fencing doesn’t use a partial second clock. No tenths or hundredths of a second, even though the computer powered scoring equipment is accurate down to the nanosecond level. So. It takes a quarter second to respond to the Go! command ("Allez!"), it takes some small by measurable amount of time for one fencer to get close enough to strike at the other fencer (6 feet at 30mph is 150ms), and it takes at least 10ms for a single, and probably 30ms for a double hit to occur. So between the Allez! and the Halt! is 250+150+30=430 ... almost a half second, if not more. So by the 2nd double the clock should have run down. But the President is all powerful, and he reset the clock. Bad. And the winner lost. And I guess no one explained it to her in her native tongue, because she could have just retreated 3 steps and let the clock run out.

  And there were tears. Lots. And there was an instant and prolonged protest, which left Shin standing on the piste in front of a crowd of thousands, because if she left the strip then she’d be quitting the bout and her protest would be invalid. And they left her there for an hour. On international TV. Crying. And nobody else could fence either.

  Nice work scumbags.

  And while her protest was ineffective - not because her claim was invalid, but because the bout President is effectively all powerful, the international fencing federation (the FIE) came back a day later and offered her a good sportsmanship medal. Which is pretty much them admitting that they messed up, and that it was their poor judging that threw the match - she politely told them to go fuck themselves. In Korean of course, which is a language the FIE doesn’t use, so all they heard was No.

  The spineless dogs of the FIE (mostly Frenchmen) even tried to blame the whole thing on a 15 year old English kid who was volunteering as timekeeper, but let’s face it: the IOC may be in charge but it’s the FIE running the show, and they’re only an hour by Chunnel from their home grounds. They could have, and should have, provided their own professional timekeeper, one with loads of training and experience, and lightning fast reflexes and hearing. This is the Olympics after all, where fencing is pretty much the only sport that has ALWAYS been part of the games no matter what; you send your very best people, period.

  So that’s one bit of drama.

  UPDATE: I’m still a little connected to the fencing community. Here’s a link I got from some insiders that explains the situation clearly. And it turns out to be twice as bad as I originally thought. This was a really terrible fiasco. And perhaps NOT for Shin, as the claim in the comments that she was crowding (stealing yardage) would be very easy to prove if you had a video of the bout. Piss poor judging to allow that to happen, but piss poor judging on so many other aspects of the bout it will become a “how not to” instructional video in the future. Crivens, what a mess.
  

• A nice bit of Cool Factor. While the swimmers and gymnasts and weightlifters all have their nice little patriotic warmup jackets, the fencers have taken the patriotism to an extreme, with their hi-tech graphics. Awesome!!
  

  If you tuned in to fencing early Saturday morning—and you should, because it’s awesome—you caught a glimpse of the early leader in best uniforms. As modeled by American Nicole Ross, the already menacing fencing masks took on a layer of patriotism with the addition of the American flag. The whole goal of the Olympics is to get your flag raised.

  The Brits have done this too. Expect the rest of the world to follow suit soon. Want more hi tech gee-whiz-ardry? The foil bib is now half electric, connected to the electrically conductive torso cover called a lame (la may) by a clip and a wire. Nice, but it’s the wireless transceiver on the helmets that really rocks. Hit your opponent with the proper part of your weapon for the proper amount of time and in the proper place, and your helmet lights up in red or green. Say what? No more dragging a skinny wire up and down the piste, trying not to trip on it, praying that the body cord connection doesn’t fail, and hoping that nothing goes wrong with the reels this time ... fencing has gone wireless. Which is so cool ... but opens a whole new can of worms for the cheaters and hackers who might mess with the radio signals.
  

• More drama, or just more stupid?

  US Epee Fencer takes a gamble, loses everything. TWICE.
  

  

  With 20 seconds left in priority time (overtime) of the bronze medal match, Jinsun Jung of Korea had to be the aggressor. Had the bout ended in a tie in points, Kelsey would have captured bronze with “priority” in the extra session. Jung lunged with his epee and nicked Kesley on the foot — falling on his back in celebration, before running to hug his coaches after the bronze-clinching 12-11 win.

  “He hit my foot by, like a quarter of an inch,” said Kelsey, rolling his eyes as he moved his fingers closely to signify the lack of distance. The reason Kelsey faced Jung for third place was because he lost in the semifinals to Ruben Limardo Gascon of Venezuela — again in priority time, and completely by Kelsey’s choice.

  He was in good spirits after the fourth-place finish, which felt odd for a man who gambled twice and lost. Does he play poker? “Nope. Too poor,” he quipped.

  In the semifinal, Kelsey’s game plan involved trying to keep the score and the action to a minimum. At one point, both fencers were called for “passivity” as neither went on the attack.

  “I felt like Limardo was holding distance well, was making it incredibly difficult to attack. So take the passivity, maybe the pressure will build and he’ll crack.”

  Kelsey wanted the match to go to priority time, strategically. So he made a proposition to his foe. “I asked the guy if he wanted to go one-touch, and he said, ‘Yeah,’” he said. “I think I’m the only person in the world that does that.”

  In extra time, Kelsey had to be the aggressor. He lunged, missed, and Limardo counter-attacked for the win, 6-5.

  So Kelsey elected to do the one touch sudden death thing TWICE in overtime, and lost both times.

  “It’s fun. Olympic medal. All on one touch. It’s very exciting,” said Kelsey, whose fourth-place finish was one of the best in American history for the event.

  Which is all very honorable and sportsmanlike and so on, but puh-fuckin-leez. He could have had Silver at least just by taking the defense and being passive in both match’s overtimes. Getting into the final seed would mean either Silver or Gold. Losing the semi-final seed means he didn’t even get Bronze. Hooray for his sense of fun and adventure and all, now try and find someone who actually wants to WIN for the next Olympic team please.
  

• Oh, speaking of winners ... the guy who actually WON the Men’s Epee was Ruben Limardo Gascon of Venezuela. Venezuela’s first Gold Medal in 44 years. How prophetic. Gascon wins the dueling medal. Such perfection. How proper. Because everyone who doesn’t know jack about fencing will almost always make some Three Musketeers remark should the sport ever come up in conversation. And d’Artagnan was the Gascon.

  But it gets better than that. After his victory, a bemused Gascon left the competition venue, got on the public subway for the ride back to his hotel room, and showed all of London his medal and let them touch it if they wanted. And he didn’t even get mugged.

  A newly-crowned Olympic fencing champion proved he hasn’t let fame go his head when taking his medal home on the tube. Venezuela’s Ruben Limardo gave his fellow travellers a sight to remember when boarding the Jubilee line with his prize around his neck.

  

  A beaming Limardo posed for photos as he stood in the carriage on the London underground.

  The photo of the Venezuelan athlete who won gold in fencing Wednesday night and then boarded London’s subway system hours later, letting strangers touch his medal, has spread around the globe. At a time when the Olympic games are criticized for turning into a billion-dollar affair where athletes are treated as celebrities, Ruben Limardo’s simple decision to take public transport, instead of a chauffeured car, has received international praise.

  “What a fantastic thing to do! Must have given all the passengers a real treat,” wrote one reader of Yahoo News.
  “I hope they gave him a round of applause, he deserves it. Good stuff mate,” said another.
  “Wow can’t imagine Michael Phelps doing something like that, well done!”

  “I’ve never seen someone so happy in my life,” Chris Scanlan, told the BBC. “And I touched his medal. It’s probably the first time a British hand has been on a fencing medal for centuries!”

  
  Ouch! Yet so true!
• More dramas? Any number of the fencers expected to win didn’t. They didn’t even make the finals. American Mariel Zagunis, perhaps the only professional female saver fencer in the nation, was one of them. What the heck happened? She had it sewn up, and then just let it go.

  LONDON — Mariel Zagunis, the top-ranked U.S. fencer who captured individual sabre gold in 2004 and 2008, was stunned in the semifinals of the London Games by Jiyeon Kim of Korea, ending Zagunis’ quest for a three-peat.

  Zagunis then lost to Olga Kharlan of Ukraine in the bronze-medal bout, leaving the event without a medal for the first time.

  At one point, it looked like Zagunis would cruise to the finals. Zagunis held a 12-5 lead at one point in the match, but watched Kim erode it with spectacular counter-attacks as the American star aggressively tried to close out the match. Kim won 10 of the last 11 points to advance to the gold-medal match, while Zagunis would fence for bronze against Olga Kharlan of Ukraine.

  The match began with Zagunis, the U.S. flag-bearer at the Opening Ceremony, opening with three points in five seconds of the first round. Kim was overly aggressive. [Zagunis’ 3 touches were stop hits made against Kim’s attacks. Be aggressive but don’t leave yourself exposed!]

  But as the match progressed, it was Zagunis that forced the issue, with Kim exhibiting great defense, patience and picking apart the U.S. champion’s attacks. Kim let out a loud celebration at 15-13, as Zagunis’ run ended.

  LONDON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - In one night of fencing at the London Olympics a mighty champion stumbled from her perch, a nation found redemption in gold and two men went where none of their compatriots had gone before.

  The biggest fencing upset of the Games so far was a self-inflicted wound by women’s sabre fencer, flag-bearer, and gold medal favorite Mariel Zagunis, 27, of the United States. In a spectacular collapse Zagunis, who needed just three more touches, or points, to make it into the gold medal match, went from leading South Korea’s Kim Jiyeon 12-5 to losing 15-13. Her attempt to win a third straight individual gold medal was compounded by a loss in the bronze medal match, meaning the world number one came away empty handed.

• South Korea’s Kim Jiyeon went on to take the Gold in Women’s Sabre, perhaps making up a little for the defeat suffered by her countrywoman Shin in epee.
• Venezuela’s Ruben Limardo Gascon won the nation’s first gold in 44 years and their first fencing medal at a Games by beating Bartosz Piasecki of Norway 15-10 in the epee.
  ...
  The silver marked Norway’s first Olympic fencing medal and for Piasecki, a high school maths teacher who heads back to the classroom in two weeks, an unexpected prize.

  Piasecki was not even expected to medal, and had been ranked 47th or something lowly like that before the Olympics.

We now return you to your nightly focus on perky bottomed barely pubescent little micro-women in sparkly tights covered in chalk dust, followed by giants in the swimming pools, in their rowboats, and on the volleyball and basketball courts.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/03/2012 at 01:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Sports •  
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