Amateurs Defeat Professionals
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Title
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Amateurs Defeat Professionals
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Date
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March 1939
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volume
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4
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issue
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2
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page start
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3
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page end
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3
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content
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en
AMATEURS DEFEAT PROFESSIONALS
A Reprint From "W G W", a Swiss Sports Magazine
In former years, it has been customary in Italy to have the best representatives of amateur and professional fencing meet to decide competitive superiority.
This fine old tradition has been revived by the President of the Nedo Nadi Association who invited amateurs and masters to a tournament. There were 34 contestants, 16 of whom were fencing masters. The results of this tournament were surprising. Not one of the professionals reached the Finals.
The Gazetta dello Sport explained this result with lack of training of the professionals. Furthermore, it stated that the professionals did not have the necessary fighting experience and that their technique had proved too academic. The paper came to the conclusion that the professionals will have learned something at this tournament and that next year would show better results.
This news renews a much-debated subject of modern sport: "Amateur or Professional?" If one is generally inclined to believe that the sports-instructor, by his daily opportunity in sport exercises, has great advantages over the amateur, this news may alter this opinion. Just as shown in this Italian example, the fencing instructors, the tennis instructors, the ski instructors have, above all, in instructing beginners every day, drawbacks rather than advantages. They do not obtain the necessary training, the fighting experience, and often, their kind of fencing, tennis or skiing will be too academical, to cite once more the words of the Gazetta dello Sport. — The topic "Amateur or Professional?" is still open for discussion.
