Going for gold

March is the last month for fencers to qualify for the 2008 Olympic Fencing competitions in Beijing. Fencing.net has a story that helps put things into perspective for those of us who do not avidly follow international competitions. Most of the team spots were set by mid-March, but there is still time for individual seeding to change. In fact, individual qualifications are the only way the U.S. is going to have any representation in Men's Epee because our men's team totally bombed this year.

Here's the lowdown on team qualifications.

[Eight] teams will compete in the following fencing disciplines at the Beijing Olympics: Men's and Women's Sabre, Women's Foil, and Men's Epee. The teams qualify being in the top 4 in the world rankings as of April 1st and then the next 4 slots go to the next highest ranked team in each of the Olympic regions (Americas, Europe, Asia/Oceana, Africa.)

The practical upshot is that some very good European teams will not be able to compete in the Olympics and some really bad teams will be in for the sake of geographic representation.

The U.S. has one of the best Women's Sabre teams in the world. Arguably, they are the best although France is currently ranked higher. The U.S. Women's Sabre team has already qualified for the 2008 Olympics, and I'll be surprised if they don't medal. France, Russia and Korea will probably be their stiffest competition, although China might put up a good fight, too.

The U.S. Men's Sabre team will compete because they are the highest ranked team in our Olympic region. In other words, they're only getting in because they're doing better than Canada right now.

The U.S. Women's Foil team is only fencing because they got in ahead of Venezuela. The top four teams are European, and probably Russia, Poland or Italy will bring home the gold. I don't really follow international fencing, so I can't give you more than that.

The less said about U.S. Men's Epee, the better. They did not qualify to fence as a team, so they are going to try to get a team member into an individual event. Venezuela will be representing the Americas. If I were a betting person, I'd put my money on France or Hungary for the gold.