What can I say.... you never "win the silver". You "lose the gold". And oh man, we were so close to winning to the gold (Coach reckons we had the superior team too).. Just 2 tactical errors made such a lot of difference.

Pictures below, if you care to scroll down...

But as I mentioned before, everyone in the active team pulled their weight... Eldon, Maurice, myself, we all contributed to getting so far... Eldon's french grip, Maurice's lunge n his now-scary reputation, and my close quarter... heheh.. Kind of a bittersweet victory... Our team did perform well, but SMU was just that much better...

Saturday: Men's Team Epee

We got there on time, and as predicted, we did get a Bye, i.e. we auto got into the next round. So for the first round we scrutinized Tanglin Sec, who chewed up CJC's third team. Eldon was like "We're gonna die" and I was like "You! Quiet!" hahaa... but yea, the scoreline was totally freaky man...

Amazingly we did alright... All my close quarters came out (the poor guy who kept running into my point) ok... heheh.. n Eldon totally killed their best fencer.... To a foilist its absolutely unbelievable that anyone would have the NERVE to counterattack... haha... Maurice, of course, put up a stellar performance, marred only by the fact that he gave us a slight panic attack in the last bout by getting our 18-point lead cut to a 10-point lead...

Next was against CJC's top team. Fresh in my memory was Khai catching up 12 points on ITE and winning the thing single-handedly in the U-17s.... Well, this was super exciting lar... The lead changed hands 3 times in the bout, and Maurice went into the last round with only 1 point on Khai. Eldon was like "We're gonna die" and I was like "You! Quiet!!!!!" n hey, Maurice held him off for almost 3 min... But I think Khai wasn't on form (actually, neither was Maurice, according to himself) and we managed to scrape through...

Ahh, tragedy tragedy against SMU. Maurice and I chose the wrong positions (this is hard to explain to a non fencer) and we miscommunicated during the bout.... Think all of us were tired also, n Maurice n I both performed not as well as we expected. But Eldon more than made up for it, catching up a 7 point deficit on the SMU team... This match was so oh-my-goodness.... its like, the lead changed so many times...

But finally it was down to Xuyang and Maurice, and Xuyang got his revenge by getting to 45 first. He hit, went "woohoo!" and flung his mask into the air. Junyuan, his team mate, was running to him and as he jumped up to hug him, the mask smacked him on his face. I'm not joking. I even have it on video =D Just a random comment

Team Silver.... No one remembers it cos its "team" and cos its "silver", but still, I think we did still ok...
____________________________________________________________________________________

Sunday: Ladies' Epee Team

We rushed over from church, had lunch, and watched the girls fence ITE. It was so possible we could have won... We were even leading in the beginning! But experience told its own story unfortunately...

I then had 3 teams to support.... SMU, CJC, and Candice from RJ (I support the individual, cos only the individual is from FM.. the rest were not). Maurice was rooting for SMU, so, as promised to Jeri, I watched CJC nail RGS, then watched Candice and her team take out CJC's second team. Mixed feelings lar.... =/ Its like I'm caught down the middle, but then Coach n all the FM people were on the CJ side... I thought she should have at least one FM person on hers.... Not that I could do much anyway, cos I was score-keeping.. But apparently, but scores alone, I think she did as well as, or better than me yesterday (when I was playing DD all the way!)

RJ went against Cheryl, Cynthia, Gaya n Rachel in the next round...

How to say... I felt so so guilty during the round.... My consciounce told me I should stay with the RJ team, if only for Candice, cos they really needed help. But I was also praying that Coach wouldn't kill me for doing so, n that the CJ people wouldn't get offended.. But I hope I did manage to help in someway... The RJ team wasn't that good, but Candice herself fenced well, especially when she started attacking...but one fencer cannot win that much... For an epeeist with but 2 months and 3 lessons, it was a good fight, but again, the combined experience of the CJ side told.

The final was between SMU and CJC. Frankly, SMU should have won, but you have to hand it to the CJ team (Cynthia and Rachel especially) that they got the right points at the crucial moments! Come on VJ! Lets all go n buy black socks =Pp... haha alright joking.. CJ got the gold spectacularly! N their supporters were great too!

I watched Candice and her team tangle with Tanglin Sec. Again, what was the saving grace of RJ was that they did not give up even when they were trailing. She still focused and attacked... n I think is an inspiration to her team (so is her father!).... 4th is not a pleasant place to be in, but hey, I think she at least fought well, and I don't say that out of diplomacy or consolation... I really mean it!

Prize presentation.... Happiness and sadness... I'm happy of the silver, but not overly so. We can do better and we SHALL do better in the future...

The U-20 Epee team... I'll probably be the reserve? They don't really need me anymore, cos they are already better, but I'll still be there to fence if they need to throw in a wild card =D

Alrights... Pics of the events.. Individual as well as team, taken by Sean-Paul, Coach's son... I haven't got any images from my video clips yet though...


Individual Men's Foil. Maurice and I sitting on the bench wondering who was "Omar from Ngee Ann Poly"


Individual Ladies' Epee. Helping Candice with her wire. Yea, I look fat I know... Dunno why also... Camera angle?


Men's Epee Team Final. Watching Eldon fence....


Taking over from Eldon (his titanium guard very nice lar!)


Testing blade...


My father, who came down to help us video n take pics! Thats xuyang from SMU in the background, by the way


The VJ Epee Team!! We rulez (i know thats not grammatically or alphabetically correct, dunnit to tell me)...

Yup, so thats it for now then...

Get awesome blog templates like this one from BlogSkins.com