Major update on its way... I promise!

I'm going to go to the gym and when I come back spend the afternoon finishing all the drafts I've made over the last couple of months but not finished. Well not all of them but most of them. Starting with the Euro-Champs, then the fencing season before that and then Cuba.

It will be done!

...

Updated the Europeans

Next-up - the rest of the season

Owen the Modern Pentathlete: Week X

My struggles to achieve 200m freestyle in or around olympic record of 2:14ish has hit a series of walls and as such so has my modern pentathlete ambitions. I'll work through this section by section...

Pistol Shooting

I still have never shot a pistol. The closest I've come is half an hour of air rifle shooting easily ten years or more ago.

Show Jumping

While my experience of horse riding has increased exponentially over the last few weeks - we went on a horse treck while in Cuba. The closest I've come to actually show-jumping is asking a few people who've previously done it to explain it to me verbally in under 10 minutes... and for them to burst out into laughter. When they eventually calmed down they explained I would likely kill myself...

Fencing

Haven't fenced any Epee since about 30 minutes in February.

Running

I'm no middle distance runner. Built for short burst of energy and then long-bouts of sleeping, my 3000m times aren't really times as in something worth recording.

Swimming

The 200m freestyle probably has been the most frustrating element not only because of own shoddy freestyle abilities but because of my local pool.

Yesterday, for instance the fast lane contained 4 or 5 fat old women. One would alternately lie on her front or back clutching several floats while instead of doing a proper swimming kick she seemed to be cycling underwater. Needless to say she wasn't moving and several other women clutching boards would slowly queue up behind her. Another woman was doing back-crawl without using her legs and was dragging along in the water at a 45o angle. Yet another, was clutching several boards and doing breast stroke while completely vertical in the water - any forward motion she was getting was purely coincidental and may well have been the air-conditioning blowing her along.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

All this is firstly caused by the constant and ridiculous layout of the pool. A third of it is un-laned and a leisure area. The rest is divided into three lanes - Breast-Stroke, Front-Crawl and Back-Crawl and yet another Front-Crawl and Back-Crawl lane. What sense does it make to have two lanes which combine two strokes with possibly the biggest difference in speed? There is no indication of which is supposed to be the faster of the two and normally this seems to be decided just by how many terrible swimmers are in one over the other. The Lifeguards, who are numerous, since this is France and the state bears the responsibility of providing as many wasters as possible with pointless jobs, do nothing!

To top all this my own swimming is possibly the biggest source of frustration. Breast-stroke was always my preferred stroke. I can swim a large number of lengths no problem with breast-stroke but the technique of my front-crawl is terrible. Each time I swim a length or two I think of something else I should be focusing on. Of course the minute I do that I forget to do something else. I did enough breast-stroke when I was younger that it is automatic now and I can force myself into good technique when I get tired. On the other hand, front-crawl is still just a huge number of variables which I must try to focus on at once.

Anyway, I shall persist and push on through to the other side...

...

The final nail in the coffin for my local pool came today. I returned to a cubicle to dry-off from the shower. As I was drying myself, I felt an eerie feeling creep over me. Then I realised what was wrong... Michael Jackson was playing over the intercom. I shuddered, packed up my stuff and left as soon as I could.

Euro Champs, Day Three: Men's Epee and Women's Sabre

My guilt at not getting up at 7am to go watch Benedict will stay with me for the rest of my life. I had intended to get up and run out quick at around 7.45am and head down to catch most of it. I half woke up. Thought I needed an extra 20 minutes sleep, reset my alarm and the next time my eyes were open it was closer to 10.

I'd missed the men's Epee poules when I arrived and Benedict explained how the whole championships had been cruelly torn from his hands by the luck of the gods. In all seriousness though he was unlucky that a beatable Latvian scratched from his poule at the start. He won another match and was agonisingly close to taking another but lost 5-4 and became the third of the Irish team to depart the competition at the poule stage (the entire male contingent).

...

The afternoon it was Siobhán's turn.

In a poule with a Romanian, Hungarian, Polish and Russian fencers and a Belarussian president, one might have seen the writing on the wall. Particularly as the president laughed with his former soviet comrades on the sidelines. The dagger was truly twisted when after fenceing excellently against the powerful Russian fencer Velekya Siobhán was up 4-3 and with the momentum firmly in her favour she seemed set to take the match and guarantee her place in the next round (having already beaten the Hungarian - Peto). Siobhán went for the attack... Velekya went for a parry Quinte... which had barely cleared her navel when Siobhán's attack landed square in her chest. The most blatant mal-parry I have ever seen but the point went to Velekya. In the lottery of a 4-4 match and with momentum suddenly shifted given this heinous error the match went to the Russian.

There was only one match left after that, against her club-mate Louise Bond-Williams, who she had drawn in international competition for something like the 9th time. Matches against an opponent you know so well and who knows you so well are never easily and in a short poule match anyting could have happened. Siobhán has an excellent record over Louise in their last few meetings but it was to be the Brit who came out on top in a very tense match this time. Bond-Williams took the last qualify place in the rankings and Siobhán was left wondering what could have been... sadly.

She fenced well in a very tough poule and as she said herself, that made it so much harder to take the bitter disappointment of going out so soon.

...

At three o'clock I had to make my exit from the tournament. I had a flight to catch back to Dublin that evening from Charles De Gaulle, as I was going to be going to Rachel's graduation the following morning.

For the first time in the week the transport desk proved useful and they organised an entire minibus to take me alone, to the train station. I got a train back to Brussels nearly immediately but I was unable to change my ticket to an earlier TGV because of some pricing condition. After an hours wait on the platform I was shuttled quickly and quietly back to Paris.

I dumped my stuff in the apartment, packed my hand-luggae, changed into my suit, as it was the easiest way to the carry it and headed back to the train out to CDG.

A couple of uneventful hours later I was back in Dublin

Euro Champs, Day Two - Women's Epee and Men's Foil

Benedict was dropping his weapons in to weapons control on the Tuesday morning, as was Siobhán, so I went with them to the hall.

A tremendous amount of hanging around then followed as the weapons were waited on and we waited to support Philip in the afternoon. I filled in the time inspecting the women's epee, in which the Swedish team were surely the highlight.

Although I was not familiar with his opposition, the general vibe I got was that the men's foil was not an easy competition either - shocking.

A week before his 50th birthday philip was really putting it up himself fight with fencers the majority of whom must have been half his age. I don't know how he felt about his performance but he did seem to be quite tense on the piste. In the end the speed of the other fencers was to be his undoing and he failed to register a victory.

...

Tired from a relatively early start on the day and the ridiculously early start the day before I decided to skip the finals and take a nap in my room. As it turns out I missed probably the most eventful finals but for reasons other than fencing. The weather had been terrible all week and the roof chose to spring a leek just as the finals were being shown on Eurosport delaying the whole thing by about 3/4 of an hour.

Somewhat relieved to have missed a long wait before some finals that I had little interest in, I felt vindicated in my choice of a nap.

Euro Champs, Day One - Men's Sabre

I had my alarm set for 5.15am the next morning, so as to make sure to be up and awake several hours before the tournament. I showered and changed into my tracksuit. I had my equipment packed in my bag from the night before and did one final check I had everything before taking the bag down for breakfast.

I poured myself a bowl of muesli and some fruit for breakfast. the bus was scheduled to leave from the Sofitel for 6.15am for the bus to the venue (the bus schedule had to be re-arranged for this as originally the first bus was leaving at 7am, which would have left little or no time for warming-up). It began to rain as the bus made it's way through the empty streets of the town. In yet another, organisational master-stroke when we reached the venue at around 6.30am the doors weren't even opened yet.

I began my warm-up at around 7am. Unfortunately, I was left with no one to warm up with in advance of my poule. With small complete teams of four from most countries there was no need or will to have me warm-up with them. One of the few other single member teams, an Israeli, ws in my poule so that limited my options even further. I did my best to be fully warmed up before my poule and felt quite comfortable and confident nonetheless going into my poule.

As is the normal for the European Championships a very tough poule lay ahead of me. PRYIEMKA Valery (BLR) #51, SHTURBABIN Oleg (UKR) #62, BAUER Dennis (GER) #22, PODZNYAKOV Stanislav (RUS) #2, MAIMON Yaniv (ISR) #999, MARTI Jaime (ESP) #18. Full results from the poule are available here.

Pryiemka was my first match. I was unfamiliar him going into the match but expected a high tempo. His attacks repeated went into my guard, much to his consternation. Unexpectedly enough my attacks were working in the centre so I pressed my attack at 4-4. He managed to parry about parry my attack and get the reposte.

Shturbabin is a particularly fast Ukranian. My parries were just milliseconds to slow.

I knew what to expect from Bauer - giant attacks finished with epic lunges. That is all well and good in theory but you only really appreciate the speed until you're facing it on the piste. My distance just wasn't quite there for this match, needing to retreat an extra six foot and I was somewhat dissapointed at the fight I put up in this match.

Podz was never going to be an easy prospect, being the greatest living sabreur and current world champion. I'd fenced him last year at the Europeans and I was infinitely more satisfied with my performance this year. I fenced at my best, not at all in awe of the man. I got one great point where he fell short and then flunged at him with a feint head and then wrist. There was a brief look of disbelief through his visor mask - that was enough for me for the mean time. It's unfortunate that my best isn't the best in the world then and his is.

The match against the unseeded Israeli was undoubtedly my worst match. A match I knew I could have and indeed should have won. Nerves prevailed in the end and really I should have done better to close out the match against an inferior opponent.

With absolutely no hope of qualification I was determined still to give Jaime a good match. He's a really nice guy and always has time to say hello at any opportunity. I tried my hardest and certainly worked him up and down the piste but in the end he truly is world-class and that turned out to be a vital difference on the day.

...

On paper than it was a dissapointing result but throughout I was happy with how I fenced. The important thing for me was the difference in my performance from last year and I was satisfied that throughout it was much better. The only downside was not beating the fencer that I should have and that is something I'm actively working on sorting out mentally myself. All round though I felt a lot more confident and that truly being competitive and beating these fencers is a lot closer a goal than when I set off for Paris in November.

To put the result in context, only one of the British Sabreurs managed to get through to a direct elimination match and the three others were eliminated along with myself. It was not a result that would ever set the world on fire but I felt good about my fencing and how I had performed

...

The most annoying thing about the whole thing was how early it had been and now just over an hour later on the very first day of the championships I was finished by about 9am. Philip Lee, our foilist competitor, had arrived with his daughter in the mean time and enquired how I got on.

I spent the rest of the day watching matches in the Men's Sabre. It was a very exciting tournament as it happened. The standard was ridiculous and the big names were dropping from the very first DE. Pillet had to fence Tretiyak in the incomplete 64.

In the end Jorgé Pina took gold, beating Yakimenko in the final. Jorgé is a real nice guy, who Marcos knew from his time fencing in Madrid, and who has always been friendly since we were introduced in Istanbul last year. He ended up winning the tournament in Istanbul that weekend being in incredible form and once more at this championships, as he put it himself "I just had a good day, that's all".

...

I watched the finals with Nuala and Philip. To my shock horror and amazement, the opening ceremony was actually quite good. There was obviously going to be some ponsey dance group interpreting fencing, which was pants but they were followed by an acrobatic troupe of maybe 50 acrobats who put on an amazing display.

Special mention must go to the absolute dire straights that women's foil is in. Far more excruciatingly boring than watching paint dry; these ridiculously skilled and fit athletes put on a display that hardly anyone could bare to watch. Idiotically as well the organisors had put the two women's foil semis on before the men's sabre semis. Both matches went to time - I'm not even sure if any fencers scored over ten in either match. Much of the throng of locals who had crowded in to see the first finals of these championships, left after the first women's foil match and even more followed after the second. The crowd was much depleted by the time the sabre began.

Even more frustratingly I had to bare the women's foil final as well before the sabre final. The men's final made up for it though in a thrilling encounter that saw an on-fire Pina take Yakimenko to pieces. Then it was back to the hotel for some food and a post-competition beer. Benedict arrived that evening and was sharing my hotel room. Men's Epee, his weapon, was to be on Wednesday, starting at the same ungodly hour that my competition had begun. Philip's Foil was on Tuesday midday and Siobhán's sabre would follow men's epee on Wednesday.

Senior European Championships, Day Minus One

On Sunday morning I needed to be registered and accredited for the competition by 10am to confirm my entry into the competition. I met Nuala, the IAFF secretary, and Tom, the IAFF Chairman, in their hotel, Sofitel, which was just round corner from the Novotel, at 9am. Nuala is on the committee of the European Fencing Confederation and both herself and Tom were paid for by the EFC to be there.

We got a Taxi to the venue, the Topsporthal, to make sure we would be there before the registration closed. I dropped my gear into weapons check as soon as possible and started the long wait for it's return. It was a very impressive venue, the likes of which is sorely needed in Ireland. With a versatile indoor athletics venue as well as excellent warm-up and training facilities. A running track ran underneath the entire perimeter of the stands and a sceond large hall (larger than most in Ireland) provdided additional versatile space, in this case used to hold the over-spill of pistes from the main hall.

The weapons would not be ready till after two so we return to the town centre for lunch. We had lunch in a café near the hotel where we were joined by Tom's wife Anne. I'd decided to return to the venue at 3pm on the athlete's bus to collect my gear and do some light warm-ups and footwork before the competition the next day.

My equipment all passed and I went about doing some footwork, blade-work and stretches, needless to say all by myself.

My intention was to return on the 4.30pm bus back to the hotel. Around that time I returned to the reception of the venue but it appeared that there was only a bus coming to the venue at 4.30pm. In fact there was only two buses returning to the hotels all day - one set at 3pm and one set at 8.30pm. This ridiculous and wholly impractical bus timetable was to persist for the rest of the week.

A large group of other competitors had made the same mistake with the timetables and now a large amount of taxis was trying to be organised by one of the volunteers at reception. To annoy people further, the four buses were sitting in the car-park doing nothing. The group waiting for taxis grew irate as the Russians did their usual trick of arriving after everyone else and skipping in the queue. Pretty soon the Eastern Europeans were angry at the taxi drivers, the receptionist was angry at the Eastern Europeans and everyone was pissed-off with the Russians. The receptionist called the organisor of the buses and refused to do anymore.

Eventually the transport organisor arrived and arranged for one of the buses to leave for the town centre. They refused however to drop us at the Novotel however and dropped us instead at the Hotel Ibis 15 minutes walk away.

That evening Siobhán Byrne, our women's sabreur, arrived that before Dinner on a train from Frankfurt. Her coach, Naslimov, was also at the tournament, he declined an invitation to dinner but suggested we mind bring Marina, a American student of his, who was sharing a room with Siobhán. This seemed to be news to Siobhán, although she didn't mind at all as she was a friend of hers, and I have to say that my first impressions of this highly respected coach was that he was somewhat odd to say the least.

We went for Dinner in a restaurant by the canal that was very pleasant. I needed to get up very early for the competition the next morning but the meal dragged on somewhat mainly because of the excruciatingly slow service. We eventually returned to the hotel at around 10.30pm and I went straight to sleep since my weapon was due to start at 7.45am the next morning.

Euro Champs - Back to Paris, Off to Ghent...

My flight arrived into Paris from Havana at around 11.30am on Saturday. I'd slept for the majority of the flight and felt reasonably confident that I wouldn't suffer too much from any effects of jet-lag.

I'd just about enough time to wash some of my clothes from the holiday and grab a bite to eat before I'd have to travel on to Ghent. I met up with Siobhán, who'd been house-sitting my apartment while I was away, and got my keys back from her.

I arrived at Gare De Nord in plently of time for my flight for my train, almost an hour in advance and dozed on the platform while I waited. The trip to Ghent was somewhat uneventful also, I slept most of the way on the short trip to Brussels and managed to get an earlier direct train to Gint St. Pitiers than I had originally planned.

It was around 9pm when I arrived in Ghent. I noticed David Sach, the British referee, was on the same train and shared a taxi with him as we were both staying in the Novotel, just off the central square of Ghent. This also saved me €10 since he had an expense account (thriftiness was to be a theme of my visit).

I was settled in the hotel and ready for sleep by 10pm, quite pleased when the time I'd made and ready for a good nights sleep...

The shoddy amount of blogging of late

I've been travelling quite a bit of late - in the last couple of weeks of been to Poland, Madrid and Ireland and it's left me with little time to sit around updating my blog unfortunately.

My project to bring the blog up to date has meant that March is now up fully up to date but April and may lag far behing and June has only one post so far; this one.

I'm going to try and bring it up to date asap but with a holiday in Cuba looming (drat) and after that the Europeans in Ghent (and double drat), a trip back home for Rachel's Graduation taking me into mid July. I'm not sure when I'm going to get a chance.

I've got at least 14 entries drafted that will update the last couple of months. I've had two weekends off in the last 2 months. Since the beginning of April I've been out of Paris for 36 days and had visitors on an additional 6 days. Between fencing training, going to the gym, swimming and trying to become an modern pentathlete, it's no wonder I haven't had much time to write to this.

This page has been a victim of my own hectic lifestyle over the last while but I'm going to try and get it back on track for the sake of my own records as much as anything. Anyhoo, I'll keep you posted...

A+

France Vs. Owen The Modern Pentathlete

...Aaaaaaaggggghhhh! An entire swimming pool worth of bureaucracy!

I'm just back from a swim at the local pool. Despite the cool waters, I feel my blood boil as I reel from yet another attack of a petty French jobsworth.

Determined to get my reduced pass for the pool this time (see my last Pentathlon post) I brought my drivers licence for my age (you have to be less than 26), my Parisian rent allowance card and a bank statement with my address (you have to live in Paris). On this, my third attempt, they finally conceded and gave me the 10 entries pass for €12.50, compared to the normal price of €21.50, so I was in reasonable form as I made my way downstairs to the changing rooms.

Despite my good intentions I hadn't made it to the morning session (7.00 - 8.30 - bizarre timetable here) and I landed smack in the middle of the busy lunch session. Nonetheless I readied myself quickly for the pool, threw my stuff in a locker and got ready to do what I could in the limited space available.

As I was moving down the pool in my resplendant new Jammers (long swimming shorts - here's a shot of me in them to the right) the two life-guards on watch stopped me and started babbling at me in French.

"You can't wear those in here, they're banned."
I looked at them utterly confused, I knew you had to wear tight swimming trunks but I had no idea why these would be a problem.
"You'll have to wear shorter ones. It's alright this but next time you'll have to have proper tiny little man-thong speedos (I may be paraphrasing there). You can't wear cycling shorts in here."
"But these are Speedos and don't use them for cycling because they are swimming trunks. That and I never cycle!"
"Well guys were coming in straight from the gym in there cycling shorts into the pool and we can't be checking the label on everyones shorts."
"So you mean I have to buy new shorts?" What I wanted to say I didn't know all the profanities for and I never could have repeated here.
"Well you can use them for cycling", chimed in David Hasselhoff's assistant.

So that put me in great form for my swim. On a positive note I already felt a massive improvement from last week. Unfortunately 50m at a time was about all I could manage not because I was too tired but because the pool was so ridiculously crowded. Rather than have the pool organised into lanes according to speed, the pool has one third left as a sort of paddling pool for grown-ups then rest divided into three lanes according to stroke. The central and one would presume slow lane for Front-crawl and back-crawl, a lane for breast-stroke and an outside "fast" lane for crawl and back-crawl. This system doesn't work at all.

I stayed for the most part in the outside fast lane which had about 10 swimmers of completely different speeds on a small 25m pool. It was an absolute disaster. The main cause of the problems was this fricking whale who was swimming at a rate of less than a length to every two of mine and somehow managed to sprawl herself across the entire fricking lane with the most hideous stroke I've ever seen. Then there was other old dears swimming slow breast stroke in the lane and yet others doing hideous back-crawl. Then the was one muppet doing only his arms on front-crawl - in the bloody fast lane!

It's so irritating but I think I need to find a new pool or a new time. I have no intention of buying new trunks because of those dickheads and I have no intention of having to go that slowly again. The problem is this pool is just so convienient for me and all the others would involve a metro journey.

I'm going to try and get to the pool for the early session once this week and see how that goes...

Owen the Modern Pentathlete - Week 1

And so I set out on my first dithering steps towards competing in a Modern Pentathlon. I decided to hit the swimming pool hard and took to the challenge like a Salmon to the 3000m... this pentathlon business was confusing.

Thursday afternoon, once some initial research had been performed and the idea had crystalised in the part of my brain reserved for ludacris ideas I made my way to the local swimming pool to see what my level was like.

As I've previously stated, I've never swam competitively and the last time I've swam on any regular basis would have been 6th class of primary school. I wasn't going to let that beat me though and I set off like a man fighting a battle against a reasonably large body of water. Two lengths (i.e. 50 metres) later, I stopped in the shallow end once again thoroughly exhausted. Crap - I'd need to slow down... significantly.

So my first hour in the pool carried on like this swimming for as long as I could and working on different variables of my front crawl - breathing, arms, pace of my legs. I found myself barely able to do 50 metres and struggling to do 75. I spent some time practicing my turns as well and was quite pleased that I could at least do them at all.

Friday I returned to the pool and to change things tried some breast stroke to warm-up. Breast Stroke had always been my preferred stroke and I found myself quite able to do 200m. Pacing myself in Front-Crawl was still causing me problems however and while I would start with a decent stroke and at a reasonable pace as I began to tire I found myself floundering and losing all semblance of a decent stroke.

...

A Brief Aside - Bureaucracy on the Water, Fire in the Skies...

The pool has very irregular opening hours and only two days in the week share the same opening hours, Thursday and Friday. The pool doesn't open Monday and then opens for a morning session, a lunch session and maybe a afternoon session on the other days but at slightly different times. While checking these opening times I read the tariffs for entry and noticed there was a reduction for under 26s. So I made up my mind to ask for this reduction.

When I asked at the desk before entering the pool the woman rattled something to me in French about certain piece of identity needed. Not recognising what she was talking about I payed the full fare and decided to bring a few different IDs the next day. On Friday I rechecked the website which had the conditions of entry on it and brought my drivers licence to show I was under 26.

This time when I asked for the reduced ticket she said "<I don't speak English>" even though I was speaking French so I repeated myself and showed her the licence. She wouldn't accept it - apparently you also have to have an ID which shows you are a resident of Paris. Hopefully it will be third time lucky when I try next week.

...

Modern Pentathlon?

The most beautiful athletes of them all are the pentathletes - Aristotle

From a brief survey of Mordern Pentathlon websites this is the most commonly used quote to advertise their sport. That Aristotle was talking about an entirely different type of pentathlon (which no doubt involved naked Greek men rubbing oil in each other before running after 5 young boys) seems of no consequence to them. This quote then is the equivalent of fencing's "physical chess" analogy which does nothing for the sport only conjuring images of uncoordinated nerds jabbing at each other on a black and white checkered floor (It may be true but it's not the image we want to portray).

The true origins of the sport lie with Napoleon and his imagining of the perfect modern soldier who could shoot, fence, swim, ride, and run. Origins, which I would focus on ahead of the being called beautiful by some fruity greek philosopher if I was in charge of their marketing but that is a rant for another post.

All this aside, it's been on my mind for some time, since I heard about the Irish Modern Pentathlon Championships last October to be precise, to enter a Modern Pentathlon. For those who don't know what I'm talking about here's the Olympic Committee's quick overview of the sport:


"Shooting comes first. The pentathletes have 40 seconds to fire 20 shots from an air pistol at a 17cm-square target from 10 metres. Fencing follows, with a round-robin competition between each participant. Swimming is third, a freestyle race over 200 metres, with athletes seeded in heats according to their personal best times. Once they have dried off, the pentathletes head to the show jumping ring, where they have 20 minutes to get to know the horse before riding. The final event is the 3000m run, with the pentathletes set off at intervals corresponding to their points so the first person across the line wins the gold medal."


Shooting - 20 bullets, 40 seconds, 10 metre
Fencing - Epee, One-hit matches against everyone
Swimming - 200m freestyle
Show-Jumping - 350m course with 12 obstacles.
Running - 3000m, released at intervals according to performance in other events, first across the line wins.

This isn't some stark revelation that I've realised that Men's Sabre isn't for me. What this is really is a solid target which I hope will help me a achieve a higher level of fitness. Between now and October I'd hope to bring my fitness up to a level where I could be very competive in the Irish Modern Pentathlon Championships.

I've been trying to figure out the level required to win the event (what's the point in aiming for anything less?)

Shooting - 180+ points would gain first place at the highest level international Pentathlon. I've never done any pistol shooting but how hard can it be? Shooting between heart beats my arse! Standing in flat-shoes, with one hand in your pocket and your arm out straight, it doesn't sound that taxing.

Fencing - An elementary knowledge of Epee should give me an edge over most Irish Pentathletes. That being said epee is not my weapon and a one hit match is basically a lottery. Might train a bit of epee the week before in that case.

Swimming - 1:46 is the Irish record for 200m freestyle. I've never swam competitively, unless you count primary school galas (I sure my Granny still has those medals around somewhere). Breast-stroke was always my favoured stroke then and in the swimming I've done since for leisure would have remained so. I probably have never swam 200m consecutively in my life.

Show-Jumping - Absolutely no idea what is required but who has any respect for Irish show-jumping these days anyway. I'm sure the horse will know what to do anyway and just in case I'll stuff the poor thing full of anti-depressants.

3000m - The Irish record set by a dedicated athlete over that distance is 7:30. At our best when myself and Julian were running that just over that distance around the fields of UCD we were managing 11:30 and that was killing us. I've never been a runner, never seen the need to run and have never one a foot race in my life. I'm about a stone lighter than last summer at this stage but I still don't really have the build of a middle distance runner. Getting down past the 10 minute mark will be a big challenge.

Kremlin Bisset... And the Monsoon Season

I'm writing this so many months on, in November/December, but I wanted to go back and make sure I had a complete account of things.

Kremlin Bisset perhaps marked a peak in my form last year. I was settling in well in the club and my fencing was improving. The competition took place in Kremlin Bisset just South of Paris centre. I had a decent run in the poules, which I was pleased with and secured a relatively easy first round opponent who I dispatched without too much hassle in the 128. I had a difficult last 64 against a decent fencer, the brother of one of my team-mates.

After staying within touch during the first half of the match I failed to change my game in the second half when he did and lost out as a result. While my final ranking of #40 wasn't great, I was quite pleased with my performance on the day and considered the tournament somewhat of a turning point in becoming more familiar with the French set up.

...

After the tournament, I went for a bite to eat with Mo, one of the Scimitar fencers over from London. We'd dropped bags bag in my place before going for a bite to eat. On the way back to get the bags so he could leave for his flight in Charles de Gaulle the sky opened. I haven't seen rain like it since, even during the flood in Thailand. We pegged it back to my place for some shelter.

Reluctant to go out in the downpour, I was confident that if he left with around two hours before his flight he'd still make it without too much hassle. The rain didn't ease up but eventually it was time to go anyway. So, he set off to the RER station at Nation.

It wasn't till half an hour later that I got a call from him from the RER. The rain was so heavy that it had actually delayed the train and they were stuck at St. Denis. There was nothing much I could do except check various timetables or alternative travel arrangements. He seemed destined to miss the flight... and did.

So no miraculous escape this time, which would have made a better blog-entry perhaps. Ah well...

Change France but keep the lunches

Nice article written in a very personalable way about the dilemma facing france in the upcoming election.

The Colours... Finally

I was up at a thoroughly ungodly hour to get back for the colours. I left my apartment at 6am in the morning to get my flight from CdeG.

In the end I suppose it was a bit of an anti-climax. The standard drubbing was handed down by the UCD squad to Trinity. The final scores were

MS - 5 : 0 - UCD
WS - 5 : 4 - UCD
ME - 5 : 3 - UCD
WE - 5 : 2 - UCD
MF - 4 : 5 - TCD
WF - 5 : 0 - UCD

UCD ran out 5-1 winners on weapons - fairly convincing, I think you'd agree. UCD could have probably managed to dispatch their men's sabre team which included two foilists without me but I was glad to be there for the club for my last colours and one which marked the 10th victory in a row for UCD. It gave me another chance to travel home and visit as well albeit very briefly.

I took charge of the reffing of the women's sabre match again, this time passed off without any outside interference. The Decade of Dominance was complete but what pleased me more than anything was the thought that 70's Porn Man was watching it all on his monitors in his underground layer and when that final hit landed he swivelled in his high-backed chair and clenching his fist, released a gutteral roar "Curse you UCD!"

Apologies for the lack of updates...

Sorry about the lack of updates of late. Between my trip to Algeria, my trip home for the five nations, the rescheduling of the Colours, my graduation etc. etc. it's not like there hasn't been anything to write on but somehow I haven't got round to sitting down and writing about it.

I intend to get updates for the last 3 or 4 weeks up over the next couple of days.

A Weekend In Cardiff - Ugh!

I returned to Paris on Wednesday the 18th of April as planned and passed the week as normal until it was time to travel again. This weekend it was to be... ugh... the Student Five Nations... ugh... in Cardiff... ugh. This had originally been pencilled in as a rest weekend for me but I was somehow convinced by someone to head over to Cardiff... ugh.

Direct flights to Cardiff were ridiculously were ridiculously expensive. I eventually settled on taking a cheap flight to London Heathrow and then a National Express bus to Cardiff (it was to be approximately 5/6 hours). All this trekking to get to the chavton that is Cardiff but whatever.

The hostel we were staying in was just across the river from the Millenium Stadium. It was somewhat of a dive and after such a long and trying journey to get there I have to admit I was in no form to stay there. The pillow cases were attached to the bed sheet and the mattresses were wrapped in thick plastic. Positioned at the cross-roads of a busy chav estate the soundtrack of the evening was provide by scumbags in their modified Honda Civics parked seemingly right under the window. I barely slept at all.

The fencing the next day was fairly brief but enjoyable. Northern Ireland had failed to get a team together so there were only three matches. I fenced reasonably well in all of them I felt and was fairly happy with how they went. We didn't win any matches but my personal performance was good, so screw the team!

...

That night we started off in a fancy (the fancy) Cardiff bar - Tiger Tiger. A bit of self-service buffet grub went some way towards making up for the ridiculous price of beer... but not quite. I was absolutely exhausted from not getting any sleep the night before and was fading fast after the few beers and some food. I headed back to the hostel fairly early to try and get some sleep.

...

Mercifully my bus the next day wasn't until the afternoon and my flight the evening. So I was able to hang around a bit and relax in the morning before the journey back. I'd plenty of time to get something to eat and hang about with the team.

I'd be back to Dublin soon enough anyway, the Tuesday of that week for the colours.

Changing the colours...

It was sometime during that week that it was announced by the Trinity captain that he was not accepting that the colours were going to be held on the 17th April as had to everyone else's knowledge been discussed and agreed. Now because some of his key fencers were missing he claimed that there was not enough warning even though the date had been discussed back as far as the beginning of March. Rather than just approaching this in a straightforward manner which may well have more easily garnered a more reasonable response, said captain went all subterfuge cc-ing sports department officials etc. in a way that could only lead to aggravation between the two sides.

Anyway, all this was particular pain in the ass to me as it would involve the expense of another flight back to Dublin. The final date agreed upon was the 24th of April, the weekend after the colours. No matter what the expense was going to be now, I knew that I'd have to be there to ensure they got a serious thumping.

Extending My Break in Dublin

I was due to fly back early on Monday morning after the Five Nations. As it happens I was to be back the following Tuesday for the Colours match against Trinity. I decided then since March had been a very busy month for competitions and I hadn't seen Rachel or my family much, that I'd run the two flights together and stay the week in between and return to Paris using the return flight on Wednesday.

More Five Nations - Evening Meal

I have to say that the evening meal for the 5 Nations was a great success. It was held in the 1838 club in DCU.

I'd left the competition just before the end (missing the team photo, unfortunately) so that I could get home and get a change of clothes. My plan was to drive to the meal anyway so that I could drive back home for my brothers 21st which was happening in my house that evening.

When myself and Rachel arrived back out to DCU the drinks reception was already under way. After a spot of mingling we were lead upstairs to the tables. The setting was excellent, as was the food. I ended up having a vegetarian course bizarrely enough it looked so good.

It was a shame when it came to the presentation that the PA system wasn't quite up to dealing with the British teams who were already quite well oiled for their night in "Tempul Baa".

At around 11ish buses had been arranged to take the teams into town. I took this opportunity to leave and head back to my brother's party. I gave Siobhán a lift back to her hotel nearby as she was absolutely knackered and jet-lagged and then headed with Rachel back to my brother's.

We got there with plenty of cocktail sausages and cake still available. I managed to squeeze in a few cocktail sausages despite not being at all hungry.

It was a fairly packed night and a weekend in general but a very enjoyable one.

The Five Nations - Men's Sabre Team & Other Happenings

I got a lift from my dad out to DCU early on a Saturday morning. This is the biggest day of the Irish Fencing calendar and for some it would be the highest level they would compete. As an event it's something I've questioned it's roll in the progression of Irish fencing but it was never something I was going to give less than 100% for.

It was great for me to see my sabre team - Stephen, Hugh and Dan. We'd all started around the same time and all good friends at this stage, so there was a fantastic atmosphere on the team. Everyone knew they had a part to play and was determined to give their all. I had a suspicion it wasn't going to be easy and at best we would scrape a win on the back of an excellent performance with everything going right but we'd see...

When I walked into the sports hall it seemed to be trapped in twilight with none of the main lights on. This would delay the start of precedings and on top of that our first match wasn't till the second or third round so I probably could have afforded to stay out later with my class or sleep in the next morning.

...

Here's the bit on the actual performance of the Men's Sabre team...

Our first match was against England. Stephen tore out of the blocks against Chris Farren and picked up a good result against the whiley Jaffa who'd been around the top of the rankings longer than any of his team-mates. I was up next against Alex O'Connell but I was off to a much slower start. If my attacks fell short I needed to be immediately in his face so he couldn't build up his momentum. His bread and butter is a long marching attack. Unfortunately I didn't do this and he was able to claw the score back in England favour. From that point onwards England pulled away. While we all put in good performances against without-a-doubt the strongest team in the tournament the final result was never really in question.

The second match was against Northern Ireland. They'd managed to bring a team of 5 or 6, I think just for the sake of going on the piss but they were all decent fencers. I managed a win in my first match against Nicholls. Hugh Tobin, according to the RTE report however, "Couldn't keep up the pace" and lost us the match. Which provided us with the greatest joke ever but it was only that Hugh and Dan both fenced excellently for the match. Their group of fencers were just slightly stronger than our own and they ran out winners. I had the last laugh however with my shout of "Three cheers for Norn Iron" - taped for posterity on RTE cameras.

In our third match we faced Scottland. Aside from Harry Moncrieff they lacked outstanding international quality but were all solid and/or awkward fencers. Stephen again put in a strong performance on his 5 Nations Debut. He was really psyched-up on the day, screaming at every point from the very beginning, even just getting warmed up, even just travelling there on the bus. We kept it reasonably close in the match but Scotland were always just a tiny bit ahead. In the final match I had to catch up 15 points to the 5 Harry need to end the match. I was pretty please with my fencing in the match but couldn't managed more than 5-5 in the bout. Three cheers for Scotland and all that crap.

In our final match we were to face Wales. We'd been fencing strongly all day and I knew this was our best chance of a win. Unfortunately, in the end, the key factor was to be the terrible refereeing. We kept the match very tight and the lead pendulumed back and forward between the teams by a matter of 2 or 3 points throughout. As the match went on however, the calls of the referee got more and more eratic. His seperation of points in the centre of the piste made no sense and were completely inconsistant. Sometimes they seemed to be based on who cheered louder. Other times I could not see where the calls were coming from. At one point when one of the other fencers was fencing, on a point I was certain wasn't ours I cheered for it as loudly as possible - and the point went our way; ridiculous! The Welsh team were far more familiar with his absurd calls and played him better than ourselves. Bemused I would glance across at Juppy on the Welsh side after a terrible decision and we would both shrugg our shoulders and laugh.

Myself and Dan in particular both were frustrated repeated by his downright shoddy presiding. I left the piste shouting "Quelle Cont" except in English at one stage. Philip the team captain suggested that I should apologise to the ref for my language but when I did he didn't know what I was talking about (deaf in one ear). He'd actually been annoyed by something Dan said under his breath on the piste. So now he thought two of us were swearing at him rather than one. Last time I follow someone elses advice during a match like that.

As the final bout approach Wales had managed to build a three point lead. Against Alistar Juppy, their strongest fencer, I knew I'd have to be well psyched up. I knew I needed myself in a slightly aggitated state to get the adrenaline flowing. Unfortunately though, aided by some poor refereeing decisions I couldn't claw back the difference and Wales won out.

As I left the piste thoroughly pissed off with the ref. Another team captain came to me and said "That was your fault, you lost your cool!" I was stunned, if I hadn't been so stunned my first reaction would have been to take a swing at them! I managed to answer reasonably calmly "No, I needed to have myself worked up to get back the difference... I was in control and I was intentionally putting myself there." That was definitely the low-light of the day, wanted to knock-out another captain!
...


I was really proud of the team and really happy with how they fenced. Stephen, as Dan had done the year before, on his five-nations debut, free from expectations, had fenced brilliantly. Dan himself also put in a very solid performance after a season that had been wracked with injury. Hugh when called upon put in some really top performances and was a massive adition to the team.

Myself, on reflextion, was reasonably pleased with how I fenced. Last year, I wasn't happy with how I handled the stress of having to anchor the team on what was my own debut in the competition. This year, I felt I put in some good performances and was pleased that I never let my team down. I also tried to take on a definite leader roll in the team as captain and tried my best to coach my fencers between and during matches.

I think, more than anything we realised on the team that there was definite potential the team as a unit to improve and work together over the next year. In the weeks that followed we were fairly boyant about the potential for the team to improve its results and hope to work together over the next year in going to competitions and training to improve our results for the next year.

...

There was a lot of other things going on around the tournament as well. Kerry Hardie the author who I met in the Centre Culturel Irlandais came down to say hello and to watch the fencing. Her book is well underway at this stage.

As well as this OB Sports were filming an extract for their programme. They focused on the Women's Sabre with Siobhán and the Men's Sabre team, I suppose because I'm training full-time abroad. They filmed quite a lot of the Men's Sabre matches, getting right into my face as I was preparing to go on the piste. I tried to ignore it as best I could. They also did an interview with me, during which I went on a 20 minute tirade about what a bastard Hugh was (that is a joke), but they didn't show that.

The piece can be viewed on the RTE website here