It's Been Such a Long Time

I'm at the Pan-American Sports Organization's "High Level Technical Courses for Fencing Coaches" at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. What's supposed to happen? 3 days of classes, including strength & conditioning, nutrition, Dartfish, and then 3 days of practical sessions.

This program is being offered with USOC International Relations money, so rather than send US Fencing poobahs on wine-and-dine junkets, they're sponsoring a coaching clinic, using "Learn how we got 6 Gold medals at the Olympics!" as a teaser, and attracting coaches from all over the Pan Am zone. So far I've met some Brazilians and some Chileans. The coaches involved in putting on the clinic aren't really the ones responsible for our medal haul (except in foil), but that doesn't necessarily mean the conference won't be good.

One of the requirements is that we're supposed to disseminate whatever information we get to members of our own federation. I plan on doing an honest assessment over the whole week I'm in Springs...if the information seems incomplete or invalid, I'll say so. If it's good, then credit will go where it's due, and I'll try to get it out to other fencing coaches. From talking to Andrea, the timeline for this conference was extremely quick; the information wasn't up until June, and I didn't know about being selected until Nationals was almost over.

Thus far, I'm impressed - we received cute little swag bags. The one super-interesting item is a 6 DVD set of every single medal match in the 2008 Olympics, compliments of the USOC.

The OTC has changed a bit since I was last here in 2006. Currently MIA -- the library, apparently a victim of budget cuts. That's disconcerting, given that it contained so much interesting information, not only on fencing, but any topic related to sport.