(Image: Fencing Source: Wikipedia)
(Note: I fenced throughout middle school and high school. It was a great sport, and I learned a lot throughout my time participating in it. One of the biggest disappointments in my life was when I failed to qualify for the Junior Olympics in my senior year of high school. This story recounts that disappointment. I decided to start the story in media res and make it short and snappy because the disappointment kinda came out of nowhere.)
When you get good enough at fencing, you can really make your opponent look bad. That was exactly what Darius Zacharias was doing in the semi-final round of the last Junior Olympic qualifies of the semester. This was the last qualifier that I was eligible for before I aged out and went to college. The JO's were kinda a pipe dream for me, but I had gotten farther at this tournament than I expected. I was gonna face Zacharias in the next round and if I won, I'd make it. Zacharias lazily batted away his opponent's blade and struck her on the left foot, a difficult target. I wasn't sure if Zacharias had a reason to be treating his opponent so terribly, but the crowd was clearly turning against him. He finally beat her 15-3 and walked off the strip.
When my name was called, I grabbed my mask and my extra blades, and I positioned myself at the opposite end of the strip facing Zacharias. I'd been training for seven years. I was much smaller than Zacharias, but I could tell that his bladework was slow; my speed and agility could overcome his reach. We fenced through all three five minute periods. By the end, my hair has plastered to my mask with sweat, but I was tied with Zacharias 13-13. He fleched at me, charging directly at me with his blade outstretched. I dropped down and couched my blade towards me, aiming at his exposed stomach, like a spearman breaking the charge of an oncoming horse. He ran right into my blade. The final touch of the bout was quick- I could him on the back of his heel with a light flick of my blade. I was elated and exhausted. I fought through the last two rounds but lost both my matches. It didn't matter; I had qualified when I defeated Zacharias.
I only learned later that there had been two disqualifications that day reducing the number of competitors. Because of this, the number of eligible Junior Olympians dropped by one– my spot was lost.
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