Olympic Sidelights
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Title
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Olympic Sidelights
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Date
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August 1936
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volume
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1
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issue
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16
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page start
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2
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page end
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2
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content
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en
OLYMPIC SIDELIGHTS
One of the French foilsmen had the temerity to flèche champion Marzi in the team match... The latter parried and riposted over his shoulder as his opponent rushed by, to score on the most spectacular action of the meet---The electric recording device used in the epee was beautifully rigged up... Two large auxiliary lamps, installed at the control table, showed plainly to the audience which fencer had been hit---According to the Olympic rule, the epee events were held outdoors as long as the weather permitted... the copper net was laid upon a well-packed dirt ground held in a strip-like frame, and had fine traction----A repair shop was kept constantly busy----The testing apparatus, by the way, ingeniously measured the speed of the button, the distance of recession, and the pressure needed for contact----New electric epees, with the plug inside the pommel, and wires running through the handle, were marketed by the same men who ran the repair shop... the sabre was gone long before the epee fencing began----Sabremen are the most gregarious fraternity in the world... All practice sessions were international affairs, especially after Italo Santelli arrived with the Hungarian team----The grand old master, 73 years of age, was willing to teach one and all, and fencers from all countries waited patiently for the privilege of taking his lessons... He has the fastest hand we have ever seen, and an uncanny knack of bringing out of a man his best abilities, orthodox or not... The Americans were favored in the matter of lessons because Giorgio, his son, was our coach... Italians, Poles, Czechs, Jugoslavs, Turks, Egyptians, Argentines, Uruguayans, Mexicans, and the one-man team from Costa Rica, our own Bernardo de la Guardia, were among Santelli’s pupils----But the most interesting sabre lesson was the one which Giorgio Santelli, yielding to popular demand, and looking as flustered as a beginner, took from his father after a lapse of over fourteen years----The new maximum weight regulation affected the Americans and others using Hungarian-type sabres, which normally weigh less than the prescribed 325 grams... Weights had to be inserted to pass the inspection test... but even lead could not slow up those rampant Hungarians----Brooks Parker arrived just in time to see the sabre team matches after a hard 75-hour trip by air from Manila via the “Hindenburg”---The best show of the entire fencing games was not the Franco-Italian matches in foil and epee, but the sabre encounter between Italy and Hungary... The Kuppelsaal, seating about 3,000, was jammed to overflowing by partisan followers of both teams... The match, tense and exciting, had to be halted over and over again while the Technical Committee pleaded for silence... The entire Hungarian delegation of 400 who had arrived by special train from Budapest, seemed to be on hand to shout “Huj, Huj, Hujra!” at every opportunity... This picturesque cheer is reputed to have been Attila’s war cry, and is an exultant yell of triumph... When Rajczy scored the winning touch on Masciotta, he superseded the director in the usual routine of asking the judges whether there had been a touch, and after pumping his opponent’s hand, he leapt onto the shoulders of his teammates... Suddenly the noisy bedlam subsided as if by magic, and out of more than 500 throats came spontaneously the melancholy tune of the Hungarian national anthem... we have never been so thrilled at a fencing match----
