[Nutpoode]

I was encouraged, since I found it more absorbing than I'd expected. Japan and South Korea seem to have become top fencing nations that I hadn't noticed before. It is as clear as ever that Brit fencers too often don't stand up straight enough, and don't hold their rear legs properly. For that reason if for no other they won't get to the top. Just imagine Japanese fencers on their way up, giving the excuse that they don't feel obliged to master the finer, or final, details of technique, and saying instead "Oh, I just do fencing for fun", as you'd expect at various levels from Brits! The Japanese, and the Koreans too, judging by my old karate master, both of whom have a tradition of getting something right for its own sake, reap the benefits. Brit fencers last week didn't move as crisply, and so they limited their range of movements. It's not just legs and trunk, it's also bladework. Young Italian fencers can copy their seniors; the east Asians could simply follow the basic technique properly, and watch the top foreigners. But Brits can get to the top in the UK by following the top Brits with imperfect technique and perfecting their own only to the extent that they can be bothered.

Lawrence Halstead, to pluck one out of the air simply because I can remember his name, last seen by me fencing as a nine-year-old, is clearly stuffed full of talent (and experience) but looks like he's had to make up fencing all on his own, deprived of the benefit of hundreds of years of fencing culture. True, he does know plenty of good blade movements and does them fast but he could have been better if people had told him the technique he was winning big UK competitions with still wasn't good enough. Maybe it doesn't matter; but there's no point in discussing what British fencing needs to do to improve: don't send anyone abroad unless they can convince a genuinely skilled engineer that the physics of their bodily movements is more efficient than conventional technique would be, or they can beat the top foreigners whatever their own style, or they're doing it halfway right... and they've trained for over 250 hours over the previous 25 weeks not including competitions. Job done, and no extra expense, so long as the fencers coach each other a lot and it's soundly overseen. Don't say it can't be done because it can. Other countries don need self coaching if they can offer good ratios, but without a perfectionist attitude from coaches the money is useless.

One thing I did notice was how closely that big young left-hander Davis resembled Smirnov. If he held his trunk a little more upright, and got the bladework a tiny bit crisper as he might over time, it would be quite uncanny.

For some reason I found the épée, particularly women's, more entertaining too. I wouldn't always have expected performances in the past to interest non-fencers or even non-épéeists.

I'm afraid I found the favouring of foil attacks with absence of blade, just as bad as ever, though I have skipped a decade or two. However the spectacle was great. It took me three days to notice the spools had vanished!

Wish I’d seen the épée won with foil technique! Who’d a thunk?