my medium-spicy take is that olympic fencing has gotten so up its own ass as to be impossible to take seriously, almost exclusively because right-of-way priority rules are so asinine that you are incentivized to just run in and impale yourself as long as you get a double-touch
to explain: the dominant attacking form in sabreur is the flunge, the fleche-lunge, a short-hop attack designed to get around right of way rulings from 1992 about running attacks. it's very hard to respond to reasonably because it establishes you as having 'priority' for scoring.
right of way rules and the ban on running attacks were created to supposedly promote stronger defensive postures and more interactive sets. instead, it incentivizes the opposite.
the 'best' technique is to just attack into it hoping to score a double-touch and negate the point. which means you have an entire generation of fencers who have learned that when approached with an attack, rather than trying to parry, you should just fucking throw yourself on your opponent's sword hoping to get a tag and just be faster in the next set. it's STUPID AS HELL
Look at this set from the 2019 Worlds in Budapest. The russian fencer(left) doesn't even TRY to engage his opponent's blade. He can't COMPREHEND the idea of a hanging guard. He just takes the bait and flunges in hoping it doesn't MATTER he got hit. The pointing rewards this.
@hystericempress Ugh.
I want to like saber, I really do, but....
