Oh my God, I forgot! I knew another Olympian besides the fencers I mentioned above: Andrea Livingston who won a gold in the first year they made windsurfing an Olympic event.
WINDSURFING? Can you believe it?
The woman was my boss during a stint I spent working at Club Med. She took an instant dislike to me, and fired my ass. I still hate her for it – wherever she is – the dumb b*tch. She was lucky if she could spell her own name… but I guess she really knew how to windsurf pretty well.
[hijack]
Hey stuyguy, you still fence in NYC? [/hijack]
MR
[response to hijack]
Maeg, I was going to ask you the same Q? But then I asked myself if I really wanted to chat with a Hillarophile, and thought better of it. (Only kidding. Only kidding. Imagine a big, green toothy smiley here.)
No, I don’t fence anymore… at “the FC” or anywhere. As I said in my post, I was never really any good, and as you may know, unless you’ve got a hefty helping of natural God-given talent (not me), or get introduced to the sport as a wee child (also, not me), it takes a lot of practice to be better than only fair (definately me) at the sport.
I miss it sometimes, especially the commraderie of fellow “forgotten sports” athletes.
What’s your experience with it? We probably know a lot of the same people.
I do martial arts, and have a black belt at judo (check the user name).
I trained with Irwin Cohen, who went to the Olympics in 1972 as a middleweight in judo. I got my ass kicked in 1972 in the Junior Nationals by his brother Steve, who is the coach of this year’s American judo team. There is actually a picture of me fighting Steve in an issue of the old “Judo Illustrated” magazine. Unfortunately, I am airborne at the time.
I also fought Steve Seck, who went to the World Championships during the 80s. My match with him was sort of comparable to wrestling a grizzly bear, except less competitive. This was during the 1974 High School Nationals.
[continued response to hijack]
Nyah nyah. Keep reading that thread. I just detest Lazio.
I fenced at Columbia for awhile, where I went to college. I don’t have an enormous amount of god-given talent, but I am reasonably fast and left-handed, both of which lend themselves well to sabre. But I really don’t like sport fencing, for all sorts of reasons. I’m not even a member of FIE.
But recently I discovered a school that teaches historical and classical fencing, so now I am in melee heaven. I’m down there eight hours a week, and would train more they had the space. The nice part is, you don’t have to have studied since you could walk or be unbelievably athletic to do well. It is entirely different. My teacher is one of the leading world masters yet he was rejected when he tried to join his high school fencing team. He didn’t start training seriously until he was 20 or so.
Check it out at http://www.martinez-destreza.com.
My old teacher, btw, was Aladar Kogler. For a man about my height, he had unbelievably long arms. I mean, they must have gone past his knees.
[/hijack]
Regards,
MR
Josh Wolff, one of the forwards on this year’s US Soccer team graduated from high school with my wife, so I sort of know him.
I have also played pick-up basketball with 3 of the people on the US Men’s team and one on the Canadian team.
Bring up pro football or basketball and I’ll really be able to dazzle you (if you get dazzled by that sort of thing. Frankly I doubt anyone would actually be dazzled by this info.)
When I was in 2nd grade, my teacher knew a guy who had won a gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 84 games. He came in to speak to our class and let us try on his medal and everything. I remember that it was very heavy. 
Todd Williams, who used to run in the 10,000 meter race, went to my high school. He never won any medals at the Olympic level, AFAIK.
My school has a load of people going. Nothing compared to Stanford though.
http://www.browndailyherald.com/stories.cfm?ID=2556
I know one of the 2 swimmers and one of the many the rowers. I think the fact that 6 rowers (8 if you count the women) are from my school is impressive
There are also 2 triathletes, 2 guys on the Judo team, and a girl on the track team.
Trinity Gray runs for my school and should be there. He is the best US runner in the 800. He didn’t run well in qualifiers, obviously, but just ran the fastest american time of the year over in Europe a few weeks ago. He is also one hell of a nice guy and the fact that he is a world class runner from an ivy league school is pretty frickin’ impressive considering he comes from a pretty crappy part of Philly.
I forgot. Tara Mounsey and one other girl already have gold medals in women’s hockey from the last Winter Olympics.
[Hijack winding down…]
Maeglin, Aladar Kogler was my coach at the FC!
Never noticed his arms, but now that you mention it… hmm.
I must confess that I never cared much for your “melee fencing,” myself, but I’m delighted you like it as much as you do.
I’d suggest we should settle our NYS political differences on “the strip,” but alas I lent all my equipment to a distant friend years ago and she never returned it. Consider yourself fortunate that you’ll likely escape the Hillary-Lazio thread with your life intact!
I went to high school and a couple years of college with 4-time Olympic Gold Medalist Amy Van Dyken.
She’s only swimming in 2 or 3 events this time (and I think already has another gold, making it 5!) but after this Olympics she is retiring.
She is also engaged to the Denver Broncos punter, Tom Rouen. (This is after divorcing her ex-husband, who was her boyfriend in high school, and the cutest, nicest guy that ever lived. When we heard she was divorcing him, we were all like, “What is she thinking??!!”
Anyway, woo-hoo, my claim to fame.
There was a fellow cyclist in my club who went to the Olympics called Mark Barry.
He went to the LA games and was quite a hit because of the obvious joy he had whenever he won a race.
He was a track sprinter which is very specialised in the cycling world.
Incredibly powerful but not built for the longer distance events, in two or three pedal strokes he could leave you behind, his accelaration was unbelievable.He’d hit over 50mph in maybe 6 or 7 seconds.
He was born to it but having seen him go I find it even more amazing that there are riders even faster.
Remember the 1984 Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Los Angeles?
Remember the 1000-voice choir at one end of the Coliseum? Those 1000 little white dots on your TV?
Well, I was one of those 1000 little white dots.
(And just for the record, you got gypped. You weren’t hearing OUR voices during the Opening Ceremonies broadcast, you were hearing a smaller chorus of about 70 people that had recorded all of our songs a couple of months previous to the Opening Ceremonies. And a good thing, too – that guy flying around in the rocket pack was LOUD.)
Two, as far as I know.
My high school Latin teacher was Nora Esterhazy, who I am informed competed as a skier in one of the Olympic Games (likely in the 40s). All the references I can find only give medalists, so I cannot confirm this. In addition to all of this, she was (still is if she has not passed away) a duchess or countess or some such nobility in Hungary.
I went to college with Angel Myers (now Angel Martino or something like that), who missed the 1988 Olympics due to failing her drug test. She claimed it was her birth-control pills. I think she has since made it onto the team again.
I was a senior on the baseball team in college with a freshman named Mark Hamilton. He had a girlfreind , who I remember as a pixie, all skin and bones. She could run, though. Her name was Suzy Favor. She’s a favorite in the 1500 meters in Sydney. And BTW, she’s grown up.
Man, has she grown up.
[Can’t give up the hijack just yet…]
Pretty cool, pretty cool. He is a slightly strange man, but very interesting. Quick story: apparently one of his most gifted fencers was a woman about to start a family. She couldn’t train for much of her pregnancy, so Aladar gave her some of his mental exercises to do instead, only about fifteen minutes worth a day. She did them diligently every day, and finally returned to training after a few months. She lost virtually none of her technique nor her speed.
Thanks! I, of course, feel the same way about sport fencing. 
Is that a challenge I hear? Lack of equipment is no excuse:
Historical/Classical fencers cut flicky sports-types to ribbons. So in a bout, it’s more than possible that you will score more points. But with live steel, well, that would be another story. Even the most basic sport techniques can be handicaps in a real duel. I don’t mean to start a pissing contest or anything…
[/hijack]
Regards,
MR
[Nor can I…]
Just remember, I fenced epee. None of that right-of-way business cluttering up my reflex nerve pathways… so think twice before you slap that glove on my cheeks, sir!
[Gah]
True that, about the epee. However, sport epee fencers are a lot easier about giving up points when they know they can take the next one.
I’m not slapping the glove yet…you’re the one who said I was lucky you lost your gear.
MR
The hospital I work at had a doctor(now retired) who was originally from the Phillipines. “Dr. P” won a bronze medal for swimming back in the 50’s, but never told anyone about it until just before he left. Someone else found out while researching a retirement tribute to him and the story got out. A modest man.
While on the subject of medals, I hate it when I hear commentators say something like “He/she will have to settle for a silver/bronze medal.” SETTLE? IMHO, just GETTING to the Olympics shows you are great, one of the best in the world. And as for second or third place, that means you are so far to the top of the heap in status that you don’t have to apologize for anything.
Remember the story from the Mexico City Olympics? The Tanzanian marathon runner that finished dead last, over an hour behind the winner? The poor guy comes staggering and limping into the stadium, almost forgotten, but folks cheer him when they realize what he is doing. When asked why he didn’t quit, John Steven Akwhari(not sure about the spelling of the last name) replied, “My country didn’t send me 5000 miles to start a race, they sent me 5000 miles to finish it.” Now THERE’S an Olympian!
One of my high school buddies ran for the USA. He was a miler in HS, so I’m guessing he ran the 1500 meter. His name is Paul Geiss. While he was not a medalist, I certainly respect his gumption for making it to the Games.