Fencing at Mason: Epee, Foil, Sabre—Oh My!

By Broadside Sports Editor Brian Chan

Junior Chris Atwood first took up fencing along with his friends during his sophomore year in high school. Fencing, a sport competed at the high school level in New Jersey, became a passion for Atwood as he currently stands as George Mason University’s fencing club president.

The fencing team swept the competition last Sunday with five wins over George Washington University 21-6, St. John’s College 18-9, St. Mary’s University 19-8, University of Maryland-College Park 14-13, and the United States Naval Academy 16-11 in their first ever dual meet. The team heads into its next competition, which will be held on February 15, with great confidence.

“We felt pretty strong going into the meet. We expected to finish in the top three, but going undefeated is great and it puts us in a great position to win the BWCFC [Baltimore-Washington Collegiate Fencing Conference] championships,” Atwood said.

The freshmen had a strong showing as Matt Bedker led the epee at 14-1 and Jay Carty went 12-2 for the foil team. Foil fencer Victoria Owens was also solid at 11-3. Atwood led all sabre fencers at 13-2.

Fencing emerged as a club sport at Mason in the spring of 2007 with founder Atwood and co-founder Kim Weigend.

“It was definitely a lot of work in the beginning, but with her in charge of administration and me coaching the team, it was a lot easier. It was great getting past the first stage where we had to find space on campus and we were able to find people to join,” Atwood said.

It was not easy recruiting people at first since a number of the current members on the team had no experience before joining. It was a first-time experience for 16 of the 28 fencers. The only requirement is the willingness to learn the sport. Neither experience nor training is necessary to join Mason’s fencing team. There is a huge range of skills between the experienced and non-experienced fencers.

Atwood says that they do not ask a lot from their beginners, but those fencers do get some good experience out of it. As far as the experienced fencers, they devote more of their time to the sport.

The team has two-hour practices three times per week in the Multi-Purpose Room at the Aquatic and Fitness Center.

Atwood believes fencing is a great workout and is “a lot more fun than running on a treadmill for an hour.” Experienced and non-experienced fencers end up having a great time.

Aside from the fun, the team believes that they need to continue to work harder in order to reach the goal of winning a conference championship. Fencing requires people to make quick decisions as Atwood refers to it as a “very cerebral sport.”

Among mainstream sports, fencing, known as the “physical chess,” is considered to be the safest. In the past 15 years, more deaths occurred in chess than fencing. Fencing can only cause sore muscles, but unlike the other sports, no severe injuries are involved.

A regular team consists of nine people per squad, and three of them are either epee, foil or sabre fencers. The rules are different for each. For instance, the epee and foil fencers can only hit with the point of their sword, while the sabre fencers can hit opponents with the edge. This is what makes sabre attacks much quicker and more physical. Each fencer goes through a three-round rotation, fighting all of the opposing fencers of that kind.

Fencers duel for approximately 90 minutes over the course of the 27-bout match. The fencer that gets to five touches in three minutes first wins the bout. If a bout is tied at the end of the three minutes, the two fencers go into a one-minute sudden death. A priority is an advantage to one fencer, which is determined by a coin toss. If both fencers fail to score a touch in overtime, the one with priority wins the bout. This occurs more often in epee matches since epee fencers have the slowest tactical weapon.

This was nearly the case in last weekend’s match against Maryland-College Park when Bedker and his opponent were tied at four. With the teams tied at 13-13, Bedker recorded the fifth touch to give Mason a thrilling win.

“It was great to have a team-spirited environment, everyone was cheering and fencing their hardest,” Atwood said.

From day one, Atwood never expected fencing to be a long-term commitment. Today, he is not only the president and coach of Mason fencing, but he referees at the national level. One can say Atwood is an entrepreneur of the sport, but he believes Mason fencing will only get stronger after he graduates. With an overly strong freshman class and a huge opportunity to win this season’s conference championships, Mason fencing may soon find themselves competing at the NCAA level.