Rome’s Second Annual Gladiator Gala sported an astonishing finish by NGFC’s Harrison Saylor, whose third place in open epee catapulted him from a U to a B rating and into the top 10 of the Georgia Division points standings, leaving his dad at the top of the D and Under Epee ranking. Mind you, this was after seeding 22nd out of pools; by definition every victory in the DEs was an upset, starting with 11th seed Gianluca Ruggiero from RFC in the table of 32, AFC’s C-rated Charles Shapiro who’d seeded 6th, and AFC’s 13th seed James Gregoire, (who re-earned his C) in the round of 8. It took AFC’s C-rated Hal Wright (who had taken out A-rated points leader Craig Shaffren of NGFC in the round of 8) to stop Harrison in the semi-final; Hal went on to silver and a B rating in the final. AFC’s Daniel Ashkeboussi and Houston Fullerton, FFA’s Scott Seaman and Daniel Cooper, and DFC’s Bruce Vail were no-shows (in fact, by incredible coincidence, none of DFC’s 87 epeeists showed up for this A2 event).

Nellya had a foil tournament once upon a long time ago in a different place; I think six people showed up – Nellya has hosted saber events exclusively ever since, until last weekend. The Luftmenschen open was the biggest foil event (41 competitors in the open) in the Georgia Division so far this season; it was also the strongest (4 As and 6 Bs). On behalf of Maestro Arkady Burdan, organizer Susan Loper, my coach Chris Loper, and my fellow Nellya foilests, Julio and Tanya Diaz, Carlos Balhana, Mark Calhoun, and Robert Nacu, thank you for coming; we really appreciate it.

Our day started on Saturday, helping with the set up, and Sunday was a twelve hour day, helping with the clean up. Nor were we excused from practice the Friday before or the Monday after. I lost some weight in addition to my first DE in the Open, to AFC’s Sam Dobmeyer, but not without a struggle to get out of the hole I’d dug myself in the first period that narrowed his win to 15-12, thanks to expert strip coaching by ACN’s Elise Barnes (Chris was directing elsewhere). I did not wear Sam out though, he went on to upset ACN’s B-rated Morgan Johnson in the round of 16, losing to the eventual winner in the round of eight, the same guy who beat ACN’s Valeria Makeeva. MEANwhile, Carlos Balhana’s penultimate event as a Nellya fencer started with his first DE against Sam’s nemesis. Going, going. Of the Nellya contingent, Julia Diaz was certainly the right guy to go up against ACN’s Alex Chiang, winner of the Kentucky Division Y14 SYC last month. Emphasis mine. Veteran against youth. Who is missing? ACN’s Rocky Rothenberg ran into Chile’s Hernan Medina, who needs no introduction to those who saw him at ACN last January, where he went to a B rating from the E he had earned only two weeks earlier, the hard way, in an E1 tournament in North Carolina.

They like to say that fencing is a one on one game, such as boxing (which it does refract), rather than a team sport, such as football, but there is a dance among the contenders in an A2 Foil event with a field of 41. The top ones know who is likely to go all the way, and what their own odds are of doing likewise. They study the seedings, calculate the probable paths the other top five or six will take through the tables. They seek each other out from across the room, more like singles hoping to get to dance together than enemies in a pretend war game. It’s real, not fantasy.

The D and Under started before the open was over; this is what I missed: South Carolina’s “Hurling” Michael Green, who’d just earned a rating fitting his ability against Hernan when Hernan got his B (i.e. at ACN in January), was doing fine until the round of 16 and North Carolina’s Joseph Alter, in his first Georgia Division event since Sword of Nauseous. Irony, thy name is fencing.

The Clemson boys, Dmitry Bokhanevich (C) and Barend Havenga (D), turned up in the round of 8, as did AFC’s Andy “Cha-Chi” Quattrociocchi (squeaking by ACN’s Max Cuchet) [Russian, South African, Italian, and French].

Because only one of the four As, Julio Diaz, [Cuban] made it to the table of 4, an A2 event became a B2 event.

There is one A unaccounted for: Augusta and Georgia Southern’s [red-blooded American] Blake Watson, l’enfant terrible, who will be going off to college next year. Hard to imagine Georgia Division foil without him. Even if he stays in Georgia for college he’ll probably be scarce for the first semester or so, studying, like his old club mate Paul Herin, who is finally starting to show up again now and then, or partying, like Paul’s brother, what’s-his-name. Blake had his worst result since April 30th, 2005, going down in the round of 32 to AFC’s Michael “Spoiler” Geraghty, rated E, seeded 29th. 15 years old. Déjà vu. Dmitry took Michael out in the round of 16.

We suspended play in the D and Under long enough to watch the final period of the gold medal bout between Julio, who had taken Alter out, and Alex, who had taken Medina out in the final four. Alex had a considerable lead, and changed his style to protect it. Julio started eating away at the gap until he got to la-belle. He pulled off a second intention to get that 14th point, and it looked like he had kicked into top gear. Maestro Burdan refereed the bout. Maybe Alex wasn’t the one Julio had hoped to dance with.

Of the bouts I saw, my favorite was between 32nd seed, unrated, saberiste Cynthia Logan of Georgia Southern and Warner Robbins, and Clemson’s Chris Bigart in his 2nd ever tournament. Maestro directed that bout too. Sometimes things just click, and this was Cynthia’s bout. Better than a head shorter than Chris, she crossed the danger zone time after time with a straight lunge that landed true. It pleased Burdan to see her saber attacks working for her. She didn’t get any further that day, but I hope she enjoyed those few minutes as much as her spectators did.

The D and under did not lack drama. ACN’s Tiffany Liu seeded first out of pools, took me out in the round of 16 (turning the C1 into a D1 event) and Carlos out in the round 8 by one point. Gone. AFC alumna C. J. McCarter (now of South Carolina) took out Georgia Tech’s Kristi Chenault (pronounced She-no in Decatur, Alabama, where Beauchamp is pronounced Bee-chum, and Taliaferro is pronounce Tolliver) in the round of 32, and Birmingham’s Amy Wu in the round of 16, only to lose by a single point to NGFC’s John Vivian in the round of 8. Meanwhile Tiffany’s teammate Linda Zhang was coming up, taking out ACN’s Elise Barnes (despite my strip coaching; Elise had won her first DE without it) in the round of 16, and 3rd seed Jack Smith of ACN in the round of 8. AFC’s Rebecca Mao upset NGFC’s Liam Kopel in the round of 16, but went down to ACN's Max Cuchet in the round of 8, setting up the semi final. Max and John left the Birmingham girls with bronzes.

Max got off to an early and effortless lead, but, as often happens when one gets ahead, dialed back in the third period to protect his lead. John, seeming hopelessly behind, refused to give up, and began scratching one point after another out of Max’s lead. One point at a time, he salvaged a respectable and exciting come-back from what might have been a rout.

Luftmenschen, by the way, is a German word which means, literally, “air men”, but colloquially indicates people with no visible means of support (bums), a misnomer as it turns out; in addition to those already mentioned we also got very welcome assistance from Nellya Saber parents Jim Schneider, Geoffrey Smith, and Dwight Fisher; thanks.