my cuz going to olympics, her 3rd trip
 

shes a VERY distant relative.

her event is high jump, she went 6'-4.75" today at oly trials.

it will be her 3rd olympics, didnt make the finals cut in 96 or 00, but ...


shes a WINNER in my book!

another pic

schoolboys dream

Not very shy, is she?

Very distant? Distant enough I guess ;)

That's very cool. Are you going to Athens to watch?

A former fencing buddy and coach of mine is a 5 time Olympian and 8 time USA national champ. He added coaching at Notre Dame for a while to his quiver and recently moved back to Oregon to continue teaching part of the Olympic team and, amazingly, for a 46 year old, fencing on the world level as well. He’s off to Athens this summer.

I was never even sort of near the same league as him, but he was AWESOME to compete against. A lot of times I’d stop what I was doing just to watch, which would really piss him off.

That said, he was never anywhere near the hottie yer cuz is!

But he was a heck of a womanizer. Some spoils are due.........after all

GO USA! ! !

My closest brush with the Olympics - went on a business trip with my boss to Colorado Springs. When we got to the hotel, he realized that he pulled the wrong suitcase. The business card/tag on the suitcase had the owner's name and title, some director of the US Olympic committee. Don't remember the fellow's name.

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL

good lord she's beautiful. ahem, erm, I mean... Wish her luck...
k

yeah, she seems hardly "uptight" at all. ;)

the top pic was from a calendar that she organized called "track girls" that had that shot and 11 other similarly exposed olympians. i cant remember where the proceeds went.

tracy, i think i saw your friend featured on some spot about the 04 competitors. i cant remember the name. it must be a thrill to actually step into the ring (i dont know what a fencing "field" is called) with an olympian.

buddy of mine went several times representing zimbabwe in triple jump/ long jump. we went to school together.

TB, hope you don’t mind if I share a story. If so hit page down, otherwise….

Yeah, it was a great experience! Apologies of the following comes across as a conceit, as it’s intended as a didactic one: My fencing days were one of the most fortunate periods of my life. They started when I took a class while going to community college. I enjoyed the sport and took another class. And then another. The class teacher told me of a fencing club he ran. After a few months I went to the club -- just to watch. I was floored. The friendly nature, degree of camaraderie and good sportsmanship was amazing—and completely out of my experience. Someone loaned me a lame, an electric foil and other attire and I had a most enjoyable evening! A match is called a bout and each bout has 5 or 10 scores called "touches" against their opponent to decide the bout’s victor. When practicing no one keeps score during the entire competition. Commonly folks will “play” for a while and then have a bout afterward. I lost every bout that evening but it was the coolest! The fencing club or salle d’arms was a teaching and learning environment. The compitition was both fierce and very helpful. If someone did something you didn’t understand, they’d share it with you after the fact. Everyone did this. It made the rate at which you learned different, innovative, and ever more complex procedures and technique very quick.

The area you fence on is called a “strip” or “piste.” The club had 4 electric pistes, meaning you used weapons with electric sensors. For foil you wore an outer jacket, called a lame (pronounced “lam-ay”) that worked as a sensor contact so that when the opponents foil tip made contact and enough pressure was applied, it would complete a circuit and light a colored light, indicating a touch. If the foil contacted a place not on the lame, it would illuminate a white light which was indicated an off-target touch. In these events the bout referee would stop the action, let the fencers pause briefly and resume at the on guard position, then continue. If the foil made contact but there was not enough pressure applied, no light would light and the competitors would continue. In addition to the electric strips, the club had two 2 non electric or dry strips. The dry strips were used mostly for lessons. I came back to the club again, and again, and soon borrowed some money so I could buy my own equipment, and kept going back. Everyone had one or 2 lessons per week, and we fenced 4 evenings per week, 4-5 hours per night, and also on weekends when there was competition. That schedule was for we die hards. For the real athletes, training was about 10-12 hours per day, 6 days a week. I trained with the big leaguers a little, but I had work and school responsibilities that took priority. I was really lucky to be given the honor of being the club armorer - meaning I fixed hardware, prepared foils and epees for folks, checked the capability of equipment to be used in competition and other related stuff - this was done to pay for my membership and lessons, even though there was no $$ involved. Were it not for this "job" I couldn’t have afforded the opportunity. Plus I got to learn how to do some of this stuff from armorers of different world teams. Is that cool or what?! Like working with Donnie or SteveFB and many of the many great techs on this site!

Over time, as I got to know the folks socially, I found out that one of my teachers and fencing competitor - the guy I mentioned in the previous post - his name is Michael Marx, was at that time I think a 3 time national champ and 2x olympian. His brother was then, I think a 1 or 2x national champ, and also an olympian but with a different weapon called an epee. Their and my coach, who was my teacher at community college and also the club fencing master was the olympic men’s team coach. Plus there were 3 women from the olympic women’s team that were regulars, plus lots of other guys and girls of national or world class skill level. I could go on about these folks. Some of the finest human beings I've met and all very devoted. All said the place was frequently packed with national and world class athletes - guys and girls, from at times half a dozen different countries. In addition to these regulars, over time, there was a steady stream of world class athletes from all over the world who trained for weeks or months at a time. And, of course, there were a few enthusiastic die-hards such as my self to offer ourselves up as target practice.

One of the greatest attributes of these folks was that to spend time with them you’d never know of their achievements unless you were there at the time or pried it out of them over wine and pizza. They were truly humble individuals – a trait I’ve admired ever since. In fact, at competitions you could predict the losers with great accuracy by the trademark of being loud, arrogant, and aggressive. Guess it’s the same everywhere. LOL.

Fencing was also the source of one of my more notable mis-steps and a pattern that has plagued me both before and since - one of the nicest complements I ever received was when my fencing master told me that were I to train a little more and attend more competitions I would go far. He said that with my other coach, who scant moments before had won his 4th national championship, standing beside him and agreeing……..

Perseverance does indeed further.... :p

Thanks, Tracy. That was one of the most educational posts I've ever read here. I knew some of the fencing folk in college, seemed like a decent bunch, but it was just one of dozens of niche-y clubs full of interesting people; wish I'd followed up.

hits newsstands next week:


AP- Mon Aug 2, 1:22 PM ET

FHM magazine salutes Team USA's Golden Girls, in their September issue, which salutes some of Olympic Team USA's standout female athletes with a special gatefold cover and photo portfolio featuring, left to right; Logan Tom, volleyball team member; swimmers Amanda Beard and Haley Cope; Jenny Adams and high jumper Amy Acuff . FHM's Olympic special celebrates the athletic prowess and alluring beauty of these world-class athletes with images shot by George Holz. The issue goes on sale nationwide on Tuesday, August 10. Jenny Adams, an 11-time NCAA All-American in the 60 meter hurdles and an early favorite to make the trip to Athens, did not qualify for competition but is included on the FHM cover and article. (AP Photo/FHM,George Holz)

Cool! :cool:

Dave - thanks for the nice complement! Didn't see it before....

Go USA!!!!!!!

Made the ny times!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/12/sports/olympics/12women.html?hp

Case wasn't filled with cash, was it?