Contents:

So Far This Season

So That's What You Think

The Italian Job

Franco-Irish Exchange 1997

Competition Report/Results

Captain's Meeting

Licensing and Safety

Dates for your Diary

So Far This Season

The 1997/1998 season has kicked off with a truly international flavour - in the first few weeks we have had the Franco-Irish Exchange and the Italian-Irish Exchange, as well as quite a number of new fencers from all points of the globe.

Television fame beckons for coach Tony Quinn and fencers Alan Carter, Chris Hegarty and Tony McDonald who all featured on Echo Island in November. Particular credit goes to Chris who handled an interview "as Gaeilge" extremely well.

The Schull Cup, [see report] which is limited to fencers with two year’s experience or less had over thirty entrants. Hopefully they will stay with the sport and add to the ranks of regular competitors.

New Scoring Apparatus: The IAFF are delighted to announce the purchase of two new sets of scoring apparatus for use in this season’s competitions.

AGM

The AGM was very poorly attended, which is a great disappointment. It is difficult to take care of the interests of a body of individuals if they do not take advantage of the very occasion that is designed for them to present their point of view. Nothwithstanding, the new committee was elected

IAFF Committee 1997-1998

Chairman: Tom Rafter
Secretary: Nuala McGarrity
Treasurer: Anna-Lise Mion
Members:
Tim Bouchier-Hayes
Ed Condren
Deirdre Donegan
Yvonne Murphy

Anna-Lise Mion lends some support to Olympic Gold Medalist Sandro Cuomo - see story

Licensing
One of the main items on the IAFF agenda for 1997-1998 will be the matter of licensing. It is very important that everybody who takes part in the sport is licensed, regardless of whether they intend to compete or not. The IAFF strongly advises that no visiting fencer be permitted to fence in your club without a licence, as your member to member insurance will not be valid.

Ranking System
Another heavily debated issue was a ranking system. For this season, data will be compiled for an overall ranking which will be produced after the Senior National 1998. As no particular competition has as yet been given a higher value, should you wish to appear in the new ranking system, you are advised to attend ALL possible competitions this season!

Rules
The third issue under discussion was the publication of a simple list of rules, for the benefit of new Federation members. More information on this as it becomes available.

So That's What You Think

In the last issue a survey form was included asking for your help to make decisions about what we should do with Irish Fencing News in the future. Happily, all those who replied said that Irish Fencing News is very useful and should be continued, which made all the hard work that goes into it seem worthwhile.

On the down side, only 8% of IFN recipients replied to the survey, but that does give us some steer on what topics and issues you want covered. Maybe next time more of you will want to let us know what you think.

What seems to be valued most is competition news, including calendar, results and entry forms. A word to any competition organisers – Irish Fencing News is happy to include entry forms for IAFF affiliated clubs; all you need to do is send 200 forms to Máire. (see back page for contact information).

The topics in which there was least interest were Who’s Who, FIE news and IAFF news. As a result, Who’s Who will be dropped, but as one of the objectives of Irish Fencing News is to keep fencers up to date on what changes are happening in their sport and what decisions are being made on their behalf, an executive editorial decision has been made to keep these in. Also highly popular is Technical Stuff and this will be continued – there were some suggestions, which we will address as soon as possible.

There were plenty of suggestions for things you would like to see included in IFN. Future issues will address as many of them as possible, concentrating on the most popular if we can. The top item was sports psychology – we are working on this one.

A staggering 78% of you want to see Club News – well, folks, if you want it, please supply it. The editorial team agrees that this should be included, but without input from the clubs, we can’t do it. We will publish your news if you send it. Same applies to classifieds.

The other popular topics for inclusion were international results and a weapons ranking system. The newly elected IAFF committee is planning to establish a ranking system and when they do you will hear about it through the pages of Irish Fencing News. From now on, we will also publish the top results from major international competitions.

Many of those that returned forms expressed an interest in contributing to Irish Fencing News. We hope you meant it because we WILL be in touch.

Finally all completed forms were entered into a draw for a £15 LifeStyle Sports voucher – the winner is Chris Hegarty. Happy spending Chris.

Franco-Irish Exchange

Despite the after effects of the Federation Cup weekend, the fencers who attended Thierry Wattrelot’s coaching sessions seemed to have plenty of energy and enthusiasm to spare. Consider Thierry’s idea of a warm-up, it was just as well, and the eventful week paid tribute to our fencer’s eagerness to learn as well as the French coach’s charisma. I’m sure there are many of us who will find it hard to forget his particular determination to see fencers developing their hurdling skills (a useful addition to any lunge). All in all it was this spirit of novelty and enthusiasm that characterised the week and made it as enjoyable as it was.

Thierry’s visit was part of a Franco-Irish exchange organised by the Irish and French Federations. Thierry, who is Conseiller Technique Regional at the Centre Regionale d’Education Physique et Sportive (CREPS) in Rheims, was selected by the FFE to represent them in the exchange. He trains several of the top one hundred and fifty fencers in France. He is also left-handed. While we were all certainly able to benefit form his technical competence, his company was welcome as well and he dealt well with the language barrier. Nowhere was his relaxed and good-natured manner more evident than when plans were upset in the UCD Sports Bar on Saturday evening. (You had to be there! - Ed.)

While I can only speak for myself and those of similar experience, I think that Thierry’s visit was of immense benefit. Considering the scale of fencing in Ireland and the shortage of dedicated coaches it is impossible to overestimate the importance of his presence and the fresh perspective and new techniques that he brought with him. It was an invaluable opportunity to reassess our skills and find new ways to develop them. All in all, I think a big thank-you is due to the Federation for their foresight and success in arranging the exchange.

Myles Lavan

The Italian Job

It was Tuesday morning, the 18^th of November. Anna-Lise Mion, Tony Quinn and myself, Paul Bouchier-Hayes, found ourselves in Dublin Airport, checking in for a flight to Rome. Why were we going to Rome? Well, to tell the truth, at the time we did not really know. All we knew was that on the previous Friday the Olympic council of Ireland got in contact with the IAFF to say that they had organised an exchange of fencers with the Olympic Council of Italy. We were to fly to Rome where we would be met at the airport.

So off we went, feeling like characters from a cheap spy novel, ("take the next flight out to Rome, there you shall be met by a contact, at which time you will be given further information"). We were met by a contact at the airport, where we also met Daragh Quinn, the fourth member of our little entourage, who had flown straight to Rome from Madrid. However, our contact also had little information on what we were doing. She brought us to the train station and the centre of Rome and put us onto the train to Formia, a small seaside town, where we would be met by someone else.

Despite the disappointment of finding out that we were not staying in Rome, the excitement of our "mystery tour" had diminished little. We arrived in Formia at about 7.00 p.m. in the evening, where a taxi brought us to Formia Olympic Preparation Centre. The centre was an impressive sports facility, however there were no fencing facilities immediately obvious. We were shown to our rooms, and then went out and sought the fencing hall, not knowing what we were going to find.

We headed toward the largest hall in the facility, deciding that it was a good place to start, and as it turned out, our search was going to be short lived. For as we walked into the hall, who should walk past us but Maurizzo Randazzo, Olympic Gold Medalist and one of Italy’s top epéeists. You can imagine our surprise when we got into the hall to find eleven of Italy’s top twenty men’s epée fencers, all training in the same room.

We spent the rest of the week eating, sleeping and fencing, we were too tired to do anything else. We had two three-hour training sessions a day, between which we were fed very well by the centre. There was not much to do in Formia in the evenings, although even if there was, we would have been too exhausted anyway.

We all headed home on the Sunday evening (after a quick wander around the wonderful city of Rome), tired and sore, but (hopefully) well prepared for the Irish Open.

Paul Bouchier-Hayes

Competition Report
At Home - Abroad

At Home

The Vinnie Sabre Cup took place on September 20 in Ballinteer. Attendance was low because the competition was new and arranged at short notice, but it did feature the first separate ladies’ sabre competition in the editor’s memory. Vinnie Duffy generously provided the men’s cup and did the presiding honours for the ladies’ pools. OisÍn Fencing Club would like to extend very special thanks to Tony Quinn, who did just about everything on and before the day, except fence!. As usual, John Bouchier-Hayes gave up his free time to help out, so thank you very much too, John.

The Trinity Cup was next up on the calendar. This year there were eight teams (seven last year). This is the only event on the Irish calendar where every aspect of fencing can be seen in the space of one day. DUFC are to be congratulated for conceiving and running this very entertaining event.

DUFC also hosted the Federation Cup and the Dublin Epee. The Federation Cup was won by Mike Wood, who is one of the top South African fencers. Once again both competitions ran smoothly and to schedule although the week-end was marred by (non-fencing) injuries sustained by Anna-Lise Mion and Paul Bouchier-Hayes – hope both of you are back in action soon.

The fifth annual Schull Cup was hosted by UCC in November. This novice foil competition is the perfect opportunity for newcomers to the sport to measure their progress against fencers with similar experience, and also for everybody concerned to let their hair down and party. IFN visited for the first time this year and had a ball! Thanks to Dan Daly, David Prendergast and all the gang in Cork for a terrific weekend, they took care of everybody royally, and, most important, have given our novices an appetite for more competition.

The Vinnie Sabre Cup
Men
1. J. Ryan UCD, 2. P. Bouchier-Hayes DUFC. 3. =P. Dight Elite/M. O’Sullivan UCC
Ladies
1. F. O’Riordan Oisín. 2. Y. Murphy Pheonix, = 3. D. Donegan Oisín/ C. Sexton Oisín

The Trinity Cup 1997
1. Ballinteer & Elite (combined team) - - Delany, Lee, Mion, O’Reilly, Ryan
2. DUFC - Bouchier-Hayes, Duggan, Meskell, O’Sullivan, Quigley

The Federation Cup
Men
1. M. Wood S.Africa, 2. P. Lee Elite, 3= P.Dight Elite/P. Dempsey Salle Boston
Ladies
1. A. Lennon UCD. 2. A-L Mion Elite, 3= M. Pasquier DUFC/S. Warwick-Gee UK

The Dublin Epee
Men
1. S. Delany RTC Galway, 2. R. Date QUB, 3. A. Bouchier-Hayes DIT / C. Hegarty Salle Duffy
Ladies
1. G. McGrattan UCD, 2 M. Pasquier DUFC, 3= A. Lennon UCD/ D. Quigley DUFC

Men
1 I. Matthews Salle Duffy, 2 P.Burke DUFC, 3= S. Fennely UCD/ A. Schofield Oisín,
Ladies
1 C. Wong DCU, 2 J. Delvaux DUFC, 3= H. Mahoney UCC/ Deborah UCD

Abroad

European Championships

The European Championships were held in Gdansk, Poland, between 3rd and 9th November. Irish entrant was Daragh Quinn who finished forty-eighth out of eighty, being eliminated in DE by Kaido Kaaberma of Estonia who finished second.

Next Up!

Irish Open Championships 1997

Roadstone Sports Club, Kingswood Cross, Dublin 22.

Competition Organisers please note:

You are advised to obtain a signed entry form from every competitor

Captain's Meeting

Following the AGM, a Captain’s Meeting was held so that existing and incoming Club Captains or Club Representatives and the IAFF Committee could get to know one another, and learn about each other’s aims.

One result of this meeting is that an IAFF web-site is being developed by Liam O’Hagan of Pheonix, at:

http://indigo.ie/~loh/iaff/

Liam is keen to get your reactions so please, those of you with Internet access, visit the site and let him know what you think.

A gossip column for Irish Fencing News was suggested, but it was felt that if such a column existed, nobody would talk to IFN editorial staff any more!!!!!

A second meeting is scheduled for January 1998 so if you feel there is anything that should be discussed, inform your Club Captain or Club Representative in good time.

Licensing and Safety

Further to the licensing matters discussed at the AGM it has been decided that no unlicensed fencer should be permitted to enter IAFF approved competitions.

To support this, it was also decided that no penalty will be made against a licensed fencer who refuses to compete in a Senior Competition with a fencer they know is unlicensed, or who is not using regulation safety equipment, ie 800 Newton or higher jacket, breeches and mask bib, in good condition with secure fastening, properly fitting fencing glove and socks which cover the entire lower leg. This is not a frivolous regulation it is to ensure that international safety standards are met.

Further reasoning behind this decision is that it is grossly unfair to the individuals who are licensed and are responsible enough to go to the expense of obtaining correct equipment not to penalise those experienced fencers who do not.

Dates for your Diary

Competition organisers are strongly advised to arrange for a qualified first-aider to be on hand at all times during the event. The Order of Malta, St. John’s Ambulance and the Irish Red Cross all offer this service - and all they ask is a voluntary donation and some tea and sandwiches for their representative. Contact them well in advance to ensure coverage.

Competitors are urged to be as tidy as possible, and never to block safety exits or walk-ways with bags and/or equipment.

Finally, enjoy your competitions!

Máire and Deirdre wish you all a happy Christmas and a successful New Year.