Tim Morehouse not only planned and staged the Fencing Masters tournament, but won it in a final match that pitted Morehouse against teammate Daryl Homer.
The Fencing Masters was held at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City and featured several Olympic greats in men’s sabre plus Mariel Zagunis (USA) and Olga Kharlan (UKR) the #1 and #2 in the world in women’s sabre.
Earlier in the day, fencers who had won Fencing Masters qualifying tournaments competed to earn a spot in the main event. Wednesday’s tournament was won by Daniel Bak, who earned the right to compete against Aldo Montano in the main event.
The main event pitted 4 US fencers (Tim Morehouse, Daryl Homer, Ben Igoe, and Daniel Bak) against 4 European opponents (Jaime Marti, Spain; Aldo Montano, Italy; Nicolas Lopez, France; Alex O’Connell, Great Britain) in a direct elimination match up.
In the first round, Daryl Homer started the evening with a victory over Lopez. Jaime Marti then defeated Ben Igoe. After that, Daniel Bak fenced a very close match with Aldo Montano, who won 15-14 and Tim Morehouse defeated Alex O’Connell.
In the final four, Homer continued with a victory over Montano and Morehouse defeated Marti. That set up an all-USA / all-NYC final between Morehouse and Homer.
In between rounds of the men’s event, Mariel Zagunis and Olga Kharlan were introduced for the women’s event. Even though Zagunis was nursing an injury from the 2010 World Championships, she fenced well against Kharlan. The bout had Zagunis using more setups for parry-riposte actions than long attacks, but Mariel still won the match.
In the men’s final Daryl Homer started off strong and led at the break as the first to make it to 8 points. Morehouse battled back, however, and both fencers entertained the crowd with dynamic attacks and devastating sky-hook counter-attacks. In the end Morehouse won the match.
The Fencing Masters NYC tournament had a number of very close bouts. Some of the fencers looked sluggish compared to their fencing at the World Championships, but they all fenced in Paris at the world championships just one week ago. The fencers all created exciting bouts that should translate well to a television production.
Fencing Masters is scheduled to air on SNY (Sportsnet New York) on December 5th.