• Please be sure to read the rules and adhere to them. Some banned members have complained that they are not spammers. But they spammed us. Some even tried to redirect our members to other forums. Duh. Be smart. Read the rules and adhere to them and we will all get along just fine. Cheers. :beer: Link to the rules: https://www.forumsforums.com/threads/forum-rules-info.2974/

St Louis (and back) on Sunday for fencing tournament

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Picking up Dasha, my Russian fencer, plus a young female assistant coach, and driving to St Louis tomorrow for a fencing tournament. The coach is Chrissi, she is one of my former fencing students, a college student who is now learning how to coach, and is on staff at Dasha's high school.

Both will be competing in the Junior Women's Saber event. Its a regional level event and a Junior Olympic qualification event. I believe Dasha will easily win the gold based on the preliminary list of entrants.

I'm also hoping that the other young lady, Chrissi, who I am training as a coach, picks up a medal. Hopefully the silver.

Our goal is to get Dasha at least 2 "regional" gold medals over the next couple of months, that will get her name in the US Fencing magazine. As a foreign citizen she cannot earn regional points, nor can she qualify for the Junior Olympics, and all regional events award both of those to the top finishers. But the college recruiters are aware of those same restrictions and will see that she has the gold medals in multiple events and that will play a factor in getting her on a team, and hopefully even helping with a scholarship.

The original plan was for this to be a 2 day trip with the Lovely Mrs_Bob coming with but Melen got sick, so the Lovely Mrs_Bob went to see Melen. I cancelled the overnight stay because it is not appropriate for a male coach to escort 2 young ladies, one of whom is a minor, on an overnight trip. So it will just be a very very long day, probably extended by the use of caffeine. Chicago to St Louis and back, with a fencing tournament during the afternoon.

With any luck everyone will be home tomorrow evening.

Monday the lovely Mrs_Bob and I have plans to spend the afternoon with Dasha. Dasha needs an English language website with her fencing achievements highlighted. There are 2 websites that show her accomplishments, both Russian. She is the #7 rated saber fencer in Russia in her age group and won gold medals 2 years in a row in the Team Saber competition ... sadly very few coaches can read those websites so Monday afternoon will be dedicated to developing a website that highlights those, and other achievements.
 

FrancSevin

Proudly Deplorable
GOLD Site Supporter
I was unaware that our fair city was so civilized as to have a fencing tournament. Generally speaking, we resort to gunfire rather quickly. :unsure:

You received a cold welcome to my city, Sorry. But I hope all went well for you and the team.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Lunch today at Blueberry Hill after walking around Wash U’s campus. We are at the tournament now. Hope to be done by 4pm and then back on the road home.
 

Danang Sailor

nullius in verba
GOLD Site Supporter
I was unaware that our fair city was so civilized as to have a fencing tournament. Generally speaking, we resort to gunfire rather quickly. :unsure:

You received a cold welcome to my city, Sorry. But I hope all went well for you and the team.

If memory serves - always a shaky proposition - there were tournaments there when I was going out with Nursing and PT students living in St Louis U's Marguerite Hall in the late 60's.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Gold & Bronze medals for the girls :clap:

Dasha had a blueberry pie with ice cream for her lunch at Blueberry Hill. She saw an American TV show where the actor always ate blueberry pie, but had never eaten blueberry pie. So that was her lunch. Chrissi and I ate sensible lunches.

We took a brief walking tour of the campus of Washington University in St Louis. Not the official tour. I was familiar with the campus because Melen studied there for 1 semester. Saw the sports areas, visited one of the dining halls, spent a good bit of time in the library, but most of it was spent walking the main quad on campus looking at the buildings.

Went to the tournament, Dasha easily won every bout. The referee was familiar to me, we had met at some Chicago area events. A few other Chicago area competitors were at the event too. We left with our medals and headed out of town in a fairly heavy snow. Roads were accumulating snow for about the first 75 miles as we headed north before it tapered off. Clear skies north to home.

I did stop at the CRACKER BARREL in Springfield for dinner. Found out a simple way to quiet 2 girls. Put a puzzle in front of them. Ahhhh, sweet silence :yum:

I was tucked safely in my bed at home by 11:30pm.
 

Attachments

  • WEdXOiywTdy0HlCVaQliOQ.jpg
    WEdXOiywTdy0HlCVaQliOQ.jpg
    101.7 KB · Views: 103
  • uWjJi4jFSHuUWHCWGxhPjw.jpg
    uWjJi4jFSHuUWHCWGxhPjw.jpg
    88.1 KB · Views: 101
  • 6mtwJpFuSPiTUf+uGACeTw.jpg
    6mtwJpFuSPiTUf+uGACeTw.jpg
    113.4 KB · Views: 102
  • sWkiDk0BQbG5XiOI+Ab7Mw.jpg
    sWkiDk0BQbG5XiOI+Ab7Mw.jpg
    81.7 KB · Views: 106

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
That’s GREAT! :thumb:

The day turned out to be a lot of fun. Clearly not what we planned. But it worked out well. The event was smaller than we hoped, which may have been snow-storm related? Small events are not competitive enough to work up too much of a sweat but they end quicker than the 12 hour marathons we have in our high school conference! In any case it allowed us to bust out of town and not have to spend a night in a hotel so that worked well. 2 cups of coffee at the Cracker Barrel kept we going long enough to not be drowsy on the road but not so long that I sat awake in bed!

I was home, after dropping the girls off, just about 11pm and was able to see the Super Wolf/Blood Moon in the sky as the clouds opened up enough, and the snow stopped long enough, to get a very good view through a clear spot in the sky!
 
Top