davidcook

Grrrrrrrrrr.
How soon can we get rid of him again ... ?

So, last weekend I went to Stockholm, mainly to compete in the FIE satellite tournament there ("SAF pokalen" seems to be its name, it's also part of the Coupe du Nord series of satellite tournaments - Edinburgh, Oslo, Copenhagen, and Stockholm (and Iceland for the sabreurs)).
This post will be about the getting there and getting around, I'll post separately about the fencing.
The plan was to depart from Prestwick at 18:30, and arrive at Stockholm Skavsta at 20:30. From there, there's a 90-minute bus trip in to Stockholm, and then I needed to get to Bromma (by train or taxi or whatever was available), find my hotel, and get a good night's sleep.

( The trip across - not quite ideal )
( After the competition - Saturday evening )
( Sunday, and getting home )
And that was Stockholm. One day I must visit in the summer, just to see what it's like without snow and ice all around ...

So, after an eventful trip over, I got about 5 hours sleep before having to wake up and get myself along to check-in for the fencing (although I think something got lost in translation, I thought check-in was closing at 9:00, but quite a few people checked in after that and they made their final calls at around 9:30). ( There were two rounds of pools )
The first DE bout was against a Norwegian - as it turns out, he's ranked 77th in the world, and got a 3rd place at one of last year's A-grades. I got the first hit ... and it was all downhill from there. He was very tidy, fairly quick, left-handed, quite relentless, and I just couldn't land a thing on him. Finished the bout 3-15, and wandered away feeling quite bewildered. I often go away from lost DE bouts feeling angry at myself, usually because of nerves catching up with me and stopping me from putting in my best performance, but that wasn't really the case this time - in retrospect, I could have taken a different strategy for the bout, but I'm not convinced that it would have made any difference to the outcome. I was simply outclassed, which is the first time in a long time that I've felt that after a bout (I normally feel like I've got a good chance against anyone, even if the results don't always seem to bear that out).
So, that was my Stockholm tournament - in discussions with the three British fencers there at dinner on Saturday night, we agreed that this is the toughest of the Satellites, and probably tougher than most (maybe all) of the British tournaments too. I think I'd only do next year's event if I manage to get regular lessons during this year, and get to more than one training session a week, and keep going to the gym regularly - otherwise I won't be in the same league.