To fulfill a request made by a concerned reader of our website, I now present…
Fencing!
It is, after all, what the website is purportedly about, yet I do tend to get caught up in personalities and storylines. Blame my upbringing. Still, a little fencing tournament action is never amiss, especially when it includes a couple of Olympic finalists!
The clip below is from 1957 and is another rescued treasure from the Okawa/Mori/Vince collection The Archive recently acquired. The film reel this came from was unlabeled, so how, you ask, can I date it precisely to 1957? Well, if you recall this previous post:
http://westcoastfencingarchive.com/2015/06/22/maxine/
…you may recall that Maxine was injured at the end of the first round at the Olympics in 1956 in Melbourne. She spent the next season recovering, but since she didn’t want to miss fencing, she switched from her injured right hand to using her left. At about the 3:21 into this clip, you’ll see her bending her blade with her foot, then getting on guard to fence. That’s Maxine, fencing left handed, in 1957, the only year she used her left hand! Oh, and she made the National finals and won her “A” rating with her left hand. Just FYI.