London 2012 Summer Olympics |OT2|

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Battersea Power Station said:
I think it will increase in popularity as far as participation (fencing has a surprising amount of athletes worldwide and especially in the US, and it's growing steadily).

But as far as profile, it will remain neutral. As you can tell, it's not very spectator friendly. It's incredibly fun to fence, but the rules just don't lend themselves to an audience. There would have to be some serious changes to to the way the game is played, but I'm afraid that would take away from the sport.
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Kikujiro said:
I think fencing is already gaining popularity. It will always be popular in countries with a long tradition like Italy and France, but now there are a lot of Asian fencers too and they've becoming good since they're trained by European coaches.
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that's awesome, i hope you are right. i'm absolutely blown away by (foil) fencing and want the sport to do well.
 
those team gb swimmers never stood a chance, of course getting huge cheers like they're suddenly a football star is going to be the biggest deal for them.
 
SJRB said:
What? I'm not saying the sport itself is terrible, far from it. It's just a terrible match and it's incredibly annoying how the ref constantly has to ask the Italian player to put on his mask and whatnot.
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I thought you were saying it was terrible that it was in French ;p
Sorry for the confusion.
 
This is my first time closely following the olympics and it's just amazing! There's some really inspirational stuff here. Trying to watch as many events as I can. Too bad we don't have an online stream here in Aus though.

Edit:Holy Shit at swimming, so close for Phelps.
 
Battersea Power Station said:
I think it will increase in popularity as far as participation (fencing has a surprising amount of athletes worldwide and especially in the US, and it's growing steadily).

But as far as profile, it will remain neutral. As you can tell, it's not very spectator friendly. It's incredibly fun to fence, but the rules just don't lend themselves to an audience. There would have to be some serious changes to to the way the game is played, but I'm afraid that would take away from the sport.
Click to expand...

I got into fencing a little thanks to taking a college course. I think you're right about the rules, especially in foil. It is hard enough to see on-target vs. off-target hits without replay, but when you compound that with figuring out who had the first offensive move vs. parry and riposte, it is easy for the fans to get as frustrated as the competitors.

Watching the epee matches yesterday was much more conducive to picking up the sport (timing issues aside). The sport is a simulation of a sword duel, so awarding points for simultaneous hits makes sense. The whole body being a target makes sense. If the sport wants to grow, epee seems like the place to start, even if it isn't as 'traditional' as foil.

Haven't seen enough of sabre fighting to judge that, but I'll try to catch it in the upcoming days to compare.

And wow, the end of this bronze match!
 
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