-
Title
-
My Impressions of the Fencing Olympics
-
Date
-
November 27, 1936
-
volume
-
1
-
issue
-
19
-
page start
-
1
-
page end
-
4
-
content
-
en
In the following article, the interesting analysis of the American Team's performance in Berlin, and Mr. Santelli's recommendations for future improvement, should prove of great value to all fencers who are looking forward to 1940. Santelli speaks with authority and with good will. He has witnessed the last five Olympiads, and has been an active participant in them, as fencer or coach. He is a keen observer with the finest background of Olympic experience in this country. Your editor feels that you will enjoy not only the meaty content — but also the characteristic Santelli idioms in this article.
—
My IMPRESSIONS OF THE FENCING OLYMPICS
By George Santelli.
The United States has never entered as strong and homogeneous a team as it did in the Berlin games. For those who saw only the newspaper results, the showing was disappointing because some of our former teams did better in previous Olympics. But I, who followed closely the matches in all three weapons, can positively state that our team not only was the strongest we have ever had, but also, comparatively, had the best results.
Let me explain. Unofficially, all 3 of our teams (foil, épée and sabre) took fifth place; with the exception of the foil team, qualification for the final round hung on one touch. In my opinion it was much harder to place so high in the Berlin Games than to reach the finals in Los Angeles. The reason is that the number of competing teams in Berlin was much greater, and most of these teams were very well trained. This is not only true so far as fencing skill is concerned. Our opponents followed the American athletic training system and were magnificently conditioned physically. Therefore, in taking fifth place in this competition the American team did better than ever before. This is not to say that the team could not have done better. I think we could have. But under the circumstances the team did the best it could, and this was better than any previous showing.
I wish to explain the apparent contradiction in my statements. It will probably hurt some people's feelings, but I shall try to be as objective and impersonal as possible, without sparing myself, and I hope that the people concerned will understand that what I say is all in behalf of fencing and for the future glory of our country.
First of all, the preparation of the team for the Olympics was, in my opinion, not at all satisfactory because it was decentralized. I think this is a great mistake. The squad should meet in one place, and should be placed under one man's care for Olympic training. The fencers, of course, should continue to take their everyday work-outs or lessons with their respective fencing masters, but the entire squad should meet under the direction of the Olympic coach one or two days a week for at least a year before the Games. He should be one man, and he should be nominated at least a year in advance, although assistant coaches may be appointed later.
In this manner we shall prevent the drastic mistake made in the case of the foil and épée teams, where the majority of the fencers were not the direct pupils of the respective coaches. The few months they worked together were not sufficient to accustom the fencers to the coaches' method of teaching, and resulted in temporary setbacks rather than improvement, as in the case of Dow, Hurd, Pecora, and Mrs. de Tuscan in foil, Meckel and de Capriles in épée. There is no doubt that a marked improvement would have resulted if they had had the time to absorb the coach’s instructions. In this respect the sabre team was luckier because the two coaches whose pupils were on the team teach practically the same method, both being pupils of the great Italo Santelli. Four of the men were pupils of George Santelli and two of Joseph Vince. There was no problem to speak of in adapting the coaching to the fencers.
The head coach, as soon as he is appointed, and the same applies to the assistants, should make an effort at least a season ahead of time to get in touch with the respective masters of the members of the squad, and discuss with them the talents and the shortcomings of the pupil; the stage of his development as a fencer; and generally try to work hand in hand with the original coach. This was not done at all in the last Olympics.
On the other hand, thanks to Mr. Van Buskirk's leadership, many innovations were made in the preparation of the team which were excellent and should be repeated in the future. For instance, it was a great improvement to hold as many qualifying competitions as possible because (and this will be the second phase of my article) another reason for our seemingly poor showing in the Games — and probably the most important — is that our fencers are not used to long, hard competitions where they can build up moral stamina and get accustomed to the high nervous tension which dominates the Olympics.
If we take the records of the last ten years in the United States, we shall see that in the senior competitions there were seldom more than 25 or 30 contestants, of whom only 7 or 8 reached the finals with the Continental standard. The finals were usually composed of these top-notchers year in and year out. The lack of more first-class fencers makes it difficult to hold large and hard competitions, and the few good fencers are very close to one another, not only in ability, but also socially. There is hardly an antagonistic feeling among themselves during the competition, and therefore they lack what the French call "être mordant" (to be biting). Now it is very hard to arouse in our fencers this feeling with a 'pep talk', because this feeling is beyond the 'fighting spirit' of which our American boys have plenty. The antagonistic feeling I am speaking of is the product of long, hard competitions where to survive you have to beat a long string of equally good fencers, so that you can’t afford to sit back and smile. You have to fight almost with a feeling of hatred, even if you are matched against your best friend. It is a hard task for me to try to explain this feeling of "être mordant" - it is a mental and emotional feeling that is lacking in most of our American boys. They think it is not good sportsmanship to "hate" the other fellow while they fight. Probably they are right, but in my opinion it is utterly hard to really and truly fight without this feeling in your heart. If our fencers want to be immune from the morbus Olympicus they had better train themselves to be mordant.
In my opinion, the chief trouble starts in the fencing room, because our fencers are in the habit of having "friendly" bouts which consist mostly of loose play. The result is that both fencers take it easy, or fence in spasmodic spurts, carelessly and without thought of the score. It means nothing. My suggestion for improvement is that loose play should be forbidden in the salle except with the instructor, who can guide it so as to benefit the pupil. When two pupils fence a bout, they should always fence for touches exactly as in a regular bout, and each should try to win by as big a margin as possible. Not more than two bouts should be fenced consecutively with any one opponent, because too much fencing with the same man tends to dull the competitive spirit and to turn the later bouts into loose play.
My colleague who was in charge of the foil team is an excellent coach. He has brought up some of the best foilsmen in this country, and is well known to be able to give plenty of fight to his "poulains" at Yale University where he is coaching. Yet when it came to coaching the Olympic team, he did not follow up his system but tried something different. I offered myself several times to fight 5 touches with the boys, as we had done in Los Angeles and Amsterdam when Rene Pinchart was the foil coach, but Grayson did not want it. Instead, he spent most of his efforts (and he worked very hard, too) in developing technique for a defensive game. This worked like a charm against the traditional French-type fencing which is basically defensive, so that our boys had nothing to fear from disconcerting attacks. But when it came to teams which fenced more or less Italian style, the situation was different. I say "more or less" because there is no longer a definite and marked difference between the two leading schools, except in the technique of attack. Against teams which fenced aggressively our team, except for one or two men, was at a complete loss. That is what happened against the Austrian team. The Austrians attacked our boys with tempestuous, disconcerting actions, completely disorganizing their game, and our team, instead of trying to prevent these attacks by taking the initiative away from their opponents, kept on fencing defensively. We all know the disastrous result.
As far as the sabre team is concerned, the three men who were representing the United States for the first time in sabre were all in perfect physical condition. They trained very well and developed their all-round technique to top form. On the other hand, our three best and experienced sabremen, Anni tage, Bruder and Huffman, although unquestionably better than the other three, for reasons beyond their control could not train and condition themselves as well as they should have. Dr. Huffman, who until 3 weeks before the team sailed was in the pink of condition and was my secret hope for an individual championship, was painfully injured in a most unfortunate accident at a training session at the N.Y.A.C. He was stabbed in the right arm by a broken blade. One of the main blood vessels was severed, and because of the inefficiency of a telephone operator was unable to receive professional attention until half an hour after the accident. He lost a tremendous amount of blood before the doctor closed both ends of the vein. Only I know how much Dr. Huffman suffered, because as a thoroughbred sportsman he never revealed it to his team mates lest he discourage them before the Games. Naturally, the accident compelled him to stop fencing entirely, and as a matter of fact the stitches were taken out on board at the ship's hospital only a few days before we arrived at Hamburg.
Norman Armitage, furthermore, was unable to start real training for the Games until a few weeks before sailing. This was not his fault; it was the jinx of the sabre team. In the middle of the winter he suffered severe third-degree burns on his right arm from a gasoline accident in the chemical laboratory where he is working. That disabled him for over three months, and his arm was not completely right even at the time of the Games. This was our second casualty. The third man, Bruder, had probably the most serious wound. Cupid shot him through the heart, and after his marriage he dropped out of fencing for over a year. (If you knew Mrs. Bruder you would not blame him). He came back simply to help American fencing. His training was, therefore, incomplete as he had always to watch out for over-training, the bogeyman of all athletes.
I mention these cases, not as excuses for the sabre team, but to make clear my point, which in my opinion was the real weakness of our fencing unit, I am sorry to say, is that we did not have a leader. With the resignation of our non-fighting captain, Harold Van Buskirk, the fate of our team was sealed. Naturally, Joe Levis, the hero of Los Angeles, was chosen for this most important role. But in my opinion this was a great error; Joe Levis, although a great fencer himself, is too young in age and experience to fill the post. Aside from this, I think the captain of an Olympic team must be a non-fighting captain. It is impossible for a man to go through several gruelling matches, which require enormous concentration, and at the same time be bothered with the daily details and red tape a captain has to contend with daily. Therefore, what happened? Our Joe, partly because of his good-natured and benign character, and partly to relieve himself of too many tasks and worries, placed the right of selecting the composition of the teams for the various matches in the hands of the respective coaches.
This, I dare say, even though I was one of the coaches, was our greatest mistake. Because a captain’s decision in selecting a team is beyond all reproach, but not so that of a coach. I don’t mean that a coach is not capable of selecting a team. What I mean is that a coach, due to his professional standing, is often afraid of taking chances. This is what happened to me and probably what happened to Jack Dimond in the case of epee.
I had 6 fencers, of which 3 were definitely stronger than the other three. Had I had the courage to spare my three best men for the later matches, I am sure we could have reached the finals. You may ask why, if I knew this, I didn’t do it. The answer is very simple: I was a coward. I was afraid to take chances by putting a weaker team against our preliminary opponents. I did not dare take the risk of early elimination. This explains scores like 12-4 and 14-2 in our favor against teams that our second set could have beaten, perhaps by a less spectacular score, but beaten nonetheless. My excuse is that I could not bear the odium of early defeat. As a coach, I felt I had no authority to take that chance. So, I sent in our best team for all the matches, and by the end, my three best men were completely exhausted.
I should mention here that the only man who warned me, and criticized me sharply for this decision, was Warren Dow. He pointed out the example of Joe Levis’ failure in the individual championship, saying that the only reason was that Joe had to carry the burden of the team matches and had nothing left in the higher rounds of the individuals. Naturally, I saw his point, but I still did not dare. The result was an honorable place but no medals.
Something of the same sort, I think, happened to our epee team when Jack Dimond took out Joe de Capriles and put another man in his place. I feel quite sure that if we had had a strong-handed, experienced non-fighting captain, with the courage to take chances even at the risk of being eliminated in a preliminary round so as to spare the best men for the finals, we would have come home with at least two sets of medals. I am sure the team had the ability.
