Hungary: Day 4 - Training with Les Maitres

Thursday was a great day for training.

The morning session started at ten with the US, Chinese and Hungarian teams and we were also joined by the Venezualans who had just arrived. After fencing opponents across four continents in an intense session I made my way back to the hotel.

On my way in the front door I happened to run into one of the coaches from US Metro, Jean-Philippe Daurelle who is also the head French coach. As it happened I had also been invited to train that evening with the club of Laszlo Szepesi and thought that the French team would also be training there. Jean-Philippe confirmed that he and some others would be there too and I decided to travel with them to the club.

I realised on the Metro that it was only french maitres d'armes, five of them, who were attending the training to see how things were done in Hungary. We arrived at 5 and there were only children training. I was assured however that there would be adults to fence as well. They eventually arrived at six and in the meantime I was assigned the task of documenting the occasion by taking photos of the training. Imagine the opportunity for these young kids, none were much older than ten or maybe 12, being coached be the French national sabre coach. That is on top of being already coached by one of the most respected coaches and former French head coach and probably having 6 years experience under their belts already - it's another world altogether.

When the adult fencers arrived they included an Egyptian, Shadi, who new the Northern Ireland lads well. I learnt that this club was actually the same club as Akos Pathok coached in. Since the NI coaching debacle he hasn't been back because he left the club for NI and then the position didn't work out as planned. Anyway, he was a good fencer and after fencing him and one or two others I was exhausted, as this was my second training session of the day.

...

Once training was finished the coaches invited me to a meal in a local Italian restaurant. For the first while I tried in earnest to understand what was being said. Imagine the scene, myself and six highly qualified coaches all speaking French. I was craning into the table to try to hear the softly spoken Laszlo. After 15 minutes of conversation about coaching, I thought to myself, "I wouldn't be interested in this conversation if it was in English" and began to concentrate on my pizza exclusively.

All is well that ends well, however, and I got my free meal out it as I suspected I might. We are also now endebted to the French federation.