Posted: Aug 22, 2016
Over the past several years, coach Bill Shipman has had the opportunity to bring a handful of fencers overseas to compete in the KUEFI collegiate tournament in Korea. This year, the event merged with a similar one in China. Senior Nina Sayles, juniors Guillermo Narvaez and Kyle Berney and recent grad Sonya Glickman are in Wuxi, China from August 18-23. They will be filing occasional dispatches and sending along photos on their travels, which includes two days of competition with several other elite fencing programs.
Aug 23
After spending out last night in Wuxi, all the fencers were scheduled to fly out of Shanghai back to their respective cities. Kyle, Coach Shipman and his wife, and I were all on an8pm flight to Boston, so we decided to spend the day sightseeing in Shanghai. Unfortunately Guillermo and Sonya were not able to join us, as they had a much earlier flight to NYC.
Although we barely had a full day in the city, we made sure to see some of the most famous sites. First, we went to the observation deck on the 88th floor of an office building/hotel to take in the sights of the entire city. We learned that most of Shanghai has been built and developed in the last 35 year, and it was very clear by the many, modern skyscrapers that we were able to see. Fortunately, the sky was extremely clear yesterday so we were able to a very long way and at least try to fathom the size of the city, which is home to 14 million people, almost twice the population of New York City.
Next, we visited Nanjing road, the only pedestrian only street in Shanghai, and the Bund, a section of the Hangpu river famous for its views. We saw another old garden, similar to the one we visited in Wuxi, which was, about 400 years ago, a private estate for a very wealthy Chinese family, and finally we visited a silk museum and learned how the fibers from silkworms get turned into extremely soft, light fabric.
After almost 24 hours of traveling, we've all made it home and we are looking forward to meeting all of our new teammates in the next few days, and soon, beginning our next fencing season.
Aug 22
Today we went on an excursion around Wuxi to see historic and traditional sites. Our fist stop was the 500 year old Xihui garden and Huishan ancient town. The garden was beautiful and features religious and royal relics.
Later, we visited a traditional dumpling shop and learned how to make two types of dumplings that Wuxi is famous for. One was filled with chicken, pork, or vegetables and boiled in a number of different broths, and the other was a steamed pork dumpling.
Aug 21
Yesterday was the team tournament, where Sonya and Guillermo fenced mostly with fencers from Harvard and Stanford, and Kyle fenced with fencers from Penn State and Northwestern. As I mentioned before, I fenced for a Korean team which did not have a womens saber fencer. Each team fenced 11 matches (there were 4 teams per country), and many matches were very close, and the teams well matched. The US team of Columbia and Northwestern fencers finished first, a Chinese team second, and a Korean team third. The scores were close though, as the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th teams all had just 3 losses (my team finished 4th) while the 5th, 6th, and 7th place teams had 4 losses (Kyle and his team finished 7th). Sonya and Guillermo's team was not far behind at 8th place.
Fencing with the Korean fencers was a great experience, and the team was extremely welcoming. They gave me a Korean name and taught me some phrases in Korean.
August 20 - Nina Sayles
Today, on our second full day in Wuxi, we began the competition with an individual tournament. Unfortunately, each of us was eliminated in our first round of direct elimination, however we all fenced some very good, close bouts against top Korean, Chinese, and American collegiate fencers. Guillermo and I each had extremely close elimination matches against higher seeded fencers, losing 13-15 and 14-15 respectively.
On the men's side, the Koreans and Chinese dominated, and on the women's side, many US fencers, who have been successful in NCAA competition and championships, landed on top of the podium.
Tomorrow, competition will conclude with a team tournament. Teams will be made up of one fencer per gender per weapon, and competing by country. There will be 12 teams who will each fence each other in a pool format. The matches will be a relay format, and each fencer will fence to the next multiple of 5, until one team reaches 30 points. Sonya and Guillermo will fence on a team together with fencers from other American schools, Kyle will be on another team, and I have actually been asked to fence for a Korean team which is short of a women's saber fencer. I am excited for the experience, and hopefully I'll pick up some Korean fencing lingo.
August 18 - Nina Sayles
We've spent our first full day in Wuxi, and we have had a chance to see some of the city and practice before tomorrow's individual competition.
Much of what we saw is very modern and urban, although later this week we may go to see some of the city's historic gardens and architecture. It's been quite an adventure getting around the city, taking taxis, and ordering food with the language barrier, but also very exciting and interesting.
The club that we fenced in today was inside a huge mall, and much bigger than most fencing clubs in the US. The tournament tomorrow will be in a different venue, which we are told is even bigger and nicer.
Tonight we had a welcome banquet, and got to try a number of traditional chinese dishes--although we don't know what most of them were!
Nina, Kyle, Guillermo, and Sonya
