Japan's Yuki Ota, left, scores against Alexander Massialas of the United States during the gold medal match for the foil competition at the fencing world championships in Moscow on Thursday. Ota won the gold medal.
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sf2k
great shot
Black Sabbath
Congrats Ota.
Now, if we had medals for the other kind of fencing, man, the US would totally dominate.
paulinusa
The balletic balance and poise of these fencers are what impress me.
HongoTAFEinmate
Great photography, great agility. Fencing is a great sport to watch at about half speed. Watching it live you end up staring at the lights because things just happen so quickly.
inshikoku
Actually it looks like a 'no-hit' (on the throat guard at the base of the mask).
However, it looks like the Ota is really fast, actually very fast, with a strong beat attack as the American opponent was advancing (notice how his weapon is swung right out to his right and he is trying to bring it back in a hurry to parry Ota). However, Ota was maybe too quick to be able to line up his attack, making it go off target (ie. no hit). He did not need to lunge though, as he already had right of attack after beating his opponent's weapon to the side (fencing has lots of rules that a normal sword fight would not have) . I think that he sort of lunged (it is not even a good looking lunge) out of habit.
When I did fencing years and years ago, a tense shoulder would send a good attack off target everytime, Fencing with foil was a wonderful way to get some discipline and control - speed comes with thinking ahead. It is very very difficult to react coherently at those kinds of speeds.
harvey pekar
Fencing. Is. Cool.
AyameM
Such an incredibly elegant sport and the picture captures it perfectly.
sensei258
Most competitions use electric scoring machines to detect touches or "hits".