Junior Olympics Fencing Exhausting Yet Exhilarating
The Junior Olympics—or at any rate the fencing part—are incredibly chaotic. Think the first day of school times three, without anyone knowing what they're doing. The competition took place in an enormous, football-field-sized room, divided into multiple pistes, or strips. Then add the noise to this: the score machines, which beep when they're turned on, when someone scores, when someone isn't properly hooked up to the machine; the shouts and yells of the competitors; and of course the clash of metal on metal and the loudspeaker announcing names and numbers.
But in all of this, there are Olympic scouts, watching for the winner who almost invariably ends up with a spot on the Olympic team. That is what everyone is there for: the Olympics. Some fencers have been fencing for years, and have competed in the Junior Olympics several times; for others, like me, it's their first time. For the first-timers, the goal is to get as far as possible, and perhaps move up on the rating scale. I didn't go with a set goal other than to do as well as I could, and I did. Next year will be better, though.
I fence sabre, the most aggressive of the three weapons—foil, épée, and sabre. Unlike the first two, sabre is a cutting weapon. You can score a point with any part of the blade. Foils are the most common; those are the ones you see in movies like Parent Trap. Foils and épées have buttons on the end. Sabre doesn't, and for this reason, sabreurs end up with lots of welts, bruises, and even cuts (despite the fact that we wear multiple layers—for girls, at least six). When you get used to fencing, however, you don't really feel the pain (until you stop fencing, that is. You definitely feel it in class, especially Physical Education).
My coach is Oswaldo Ortega, who used to coach the Venezuelan team and was in the world championships five times. We fence in the Fencing Star Academy Club, and also the Atlanta Fencing Foundation. There are only a few clubs in Atlanta, but in my opinion (of course) FSA is the best. Training is very tiring, but really fun, and tournaments happen every so often. In fact, there's one in Atlanta during Spring Break: the National Qualifiers. I'll be competing, and Nationals are in Miami in the summer.
Editor's Note: The IB program "takes seriously the importance of life outside the world of scholarship" and recognizes that athletics can "provide a refreshing counterbalance to academic studies." Like Emily, many AIS students look beyond the team sports offered at AIS to fulfill the action portion of the CAS requirement. If you are committing serious time and effort toward a sport not offered at school, we'd like to hear from you at athleticdirector@aischool.org.