By Chuck Scarborough
When we organized the Team 4 NY Olympic challenge and I was asked to pick two sports, I didn’t give it a great deal of thought. I had some youthful experience with gymnastics and track and field, but with the wisdom of years it didn’t seem prudent to volunteer for stationary rings, pommel horse, high hurdles, pole vault or shot put – so I reached a bit farther back to boyhood enthusiasms: playing Robin Hood with a bow and arrow, or Long John Silver with homemade wooden swords. I asked you to choose between archery and fencing, and by a stunning margin, those of you who voted on our web site put a foil in my hand.
So now, you and I are going to learn the basics of one of the world’s oldest sports (the earliest evidence I could find of fencing as a sport came from a carving in Egypt dating back to about 1200 B.C., that shows judges monitoring a contest between a couple of guys wearing masks, with protective tips on their weapons). I’ll then try my hand at an actual match. With luck, we’ll all get to shout, “touché”!
Who will coach Chuck Scarborough?
Chuck Scarborough will be trained by Yury Gelman, a two-time Olympic Coach for the United States (Sydney and Athens), National Men’s Sabre Coach, and Head Fencing Coach for NCAA Champion St. John’s University (‘01). In addition, Yury received a Masters degree in both Physical Education and fencing from Kiev Institute of Physical Education.
