(The baseball reference is for Ewar).
As my aching joints and large bruises will attest, I turned up at the Much Wenlock Olympian Games this weekend and duly turned in my worst performance at this event ever - 12th in the main competition and 3rd in the Plate. My lovely shiny trophy is now in other, more deserving hands.
My resounding defeats were due to three reasons: I haven't fenced since this competition last year; I'm not much good anyway and, of course, every fencer's favourite refrain - dodgy refereeing. I can say that, because I'm a dodgy referee too. Nonetheless, in two crucial fights my referee annulled hits 'because the electronic timing's wrong', which was news to me, and nobody's ever done that before.
Oh well. I enjoyed my day, as always. I like the temporary cameraderie between competitors who only ever see each other in smelly sports halls. I enjoy refereeing, setting up, helping out, and there are always good people around. I particularly need to thank Simon Axon, who fixed my wrecked and rusty weapons and forgot to deliberately mangle my name. Apparently I was glimpsed on TV too - the BBC filmed a fight I refereed as part of the Olympics build-up. Wenlock the Olympic mascot was also around, though I didn't get a chance to see it.
I also managed to snap my newest and best foil. Admittedly, it happened in the course of satisfyingly plunging the point into my opponent's chest at high speed, but £70 is a lot of money for one point…
In other sports news, I gather that Spain repaid the Dutch for their disloyalty.
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