Saturday's Men's Saber was a fiasco.
As I was getting ready to leave, one of my students called because his mask failed the resistance test (something I was slightly worried about at our last practice). I jumped in the car, drove to the church to grab my mask (which I was pretty sure wasn't going to fit him so I started thinking of alternatives), and drove to Evanston. Once I got there, they had finished the pools and they started telling me about the ridiculousness of the equipment check and how that cascaded through their day.
Apparently, the armorer there refused to test "dirty" equipment, whether or not the dirt/sweat/etc interfered with the resistance. Even so much that he made one young saber fencer go into the lockerroom and wash his lame with windex (where'd they get the windex is a question I probably should have asked). One of my fencers nearly had his glove refused because the palm of the glove was dirty. Another fencer was told the top of his mask "seemed" weak and that while the punch test couldn't fail it, the armorer was willing to let it go eventhough it "seemed" weak. Another fencer was given a warning that a piece of his lame around the collar was close to failing and that the armorer could fail it based on that, but that he'd let it go today. Some of these fencers competed in NAC F and were not given any trouble there by the armory staff.
(Now, before any thought is given to "well, the armorer was probably being overly strict because he was from nowhere and those types tend to be overly strict." The armorer in question is a well-known National Armorer who has traveled with the teams to World Cups. Also, suspiciously, the armorer was coaching one of the saber fencers.)
My students were held up in the line for equipment check long enough that (one mentioned that it probably took around 30 minutes to get through the line, and there were only 10 fencers in the event) once they managed to change into their uniforms, they were already being called to the strip. With only the barest minimum of warm-up, they were given yellow cards for a second call to the strip.
What I didn't plan on, as far as the fencing is concerned is that the event would start 5-10 minutes after the close (events later in the day started about 2 minutes after the close), which is faster than even the relatively short start of events at other Northwestern tournaments.
With a fast start and 5-man pools, they were done fencing in less time than it took to get their gear checked. After talking with them, and getting them to refocus on the fencing, they had to fence each other in their first DE.
So, all-in-all, a relatively unsuccessful day. Even though both qualified, Tony stopped thinking in the second half of his Semi-final and then turned his brain way down low for the Bronze Medal bout (something we agreed on after the bouts were over and everyone had some time to think). Yanu had some issues in the pools, and a lack of warm-up meant his troublesome calf muscle was troubling him more than usual; this distracted and worried him enough that his performance was subpar. A couple more touches in the pool puts him in a better position through the DEs and not having to fence Tony in the Quarterfinals.
I think, had I been there earlier, I might have been able to help them focus better and perhaps even talk the armorer away from the cliff he seemed so eager to throw the competitors off.
Plus, all sorts of people asked me why I wasn't fencing. I wasn't fencing because I'm Coach now. People pay me to coach and train them for competitions, not to have me either fencing on another strip when they're struggling or having to fence me (especially at a qualifying tournament).
