Casanova Wins Riposte Tourney
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Casanova Wins Riposte Tourney
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Date
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May 27, 1937
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volume
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2
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9
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en
CASANOVA WINS RIPOSTE TOURNEY
As announced in The Riposte’s last issue, a group of fencers and shooters got together informally to decide the joint "all-weapon" championship — and when the results were all in, the champion was neither a fencer nor a shooter, but a novice at both. His name is Jose 'Poppy' Casanova, of Spanish-British ancestry, and no relation to the naughty boy of yore.
The tournament, which The Riposte has decided to sponsor annually, started with pistol shooting at the Manhattan School of Firearms. Handicaps so severe that the expert shots were practically on a par with the dubs were provided. Beginners shot at the big police target, fair-to-middling fencing shooters had a medium sized target, while the experts took a bead on the Standard American target, with the bull’s eye the size of a quarter, at 20 yards.
Casanova shot the remarkable score of 97 on the big target. Warren Dow shot a 91 on the same target, M. de Capriles was third with 88 on the middle target, and Morris Doob, several times national champion with the pistol, was 4th with 87 on the small target.
Next came a novelty match. The entries were paired off and shot at wooden discs. The loser was eliminated. Humbert Casanova, brother of the ultimate winner, scored the big upset of the day when he broke his target on the first shot to eliminate Morris Doob, the favorite. The final was won by Miguel de Capriles, whose shots were scoring fast and true throughout. The aggregate scoring gave "Mike" tops on the shooting.
In the fencing, held at the Salle Santelli, the four leading sabremen were the two de Capriles brothers, Dow and Cantor. There were several juniors, several pistol shooters who had never fenced before, and the ubiquitous Casanova, who had never wielded a weapon in his life. The beginners had a 4-0 advantage on the top-ranking men, and a 3-0 advantage on the juniors, each bout fought for a theoretical 5-touch total. Casanova and Morris Doob went through their first 13 bouts (in a 15-man round-robin) with only two losses before meeting in a final 5-touch match. Casanova lost only to Eddie Lucia, fencer, and Benny Geller, pistol shooter. Doob lost only to Charlie Feldman, fencer, and "Jake" Weissman, rifleman. The final bout was won by Casanova, 5-4, in a fine match which gave him undisputed claim to the all-around championship, while Doob earned the fencing medal.
Casanova, whose fencing was acquired entirely by watching, had fairly effective counter-tierce and quarte parries, and often scored on well-conceived beat attacks. Doob, the biggest man in the tournament, used effectively a fast stop cut to the arm and head. A grand time was had by all, and the net result has been beneficial to both games, as several shooters have become fencing enthusiasts, and several fencers have decided to take up the pistol seriously.
