Before leaving for Athens, Paul Soter answered a few questions about preparing the US Men’s Epee team for Olympic competition. Paul Soter is the Olympic men’s epee coach and has been the national coach for women’s (1993-1996) and men’s (2001-present) epee.
FN: This year the individual fencers on the squad have each had great success. As a coach, how do you approach getting them ready to peak at the right time for the Olympics?
{mosimage}Soter: We planned out our preparation together, starting right after we qualified. We scheduled this:
May: Strength & conditioning camp at USOTC in San Diego June/early July: Final round of world cups
Mid-July: Individual training camp in Switzerland (with some team work)
Late July: Team training camp in San Francisco (with some individual work). The personal coaches were consulted and it all worked out smoothly.
FN: In the team event, the US will be matched up against world #2 France. What kind of approach have other teams taken to by successful against France?
Soter: The other teams that have beaten France have tried to keep the score close and win it at the end. In terms of style, we know what the French do and they know what we do, so it will come down to execution.
FN: In the individual event, the US fencers are seeded 8th, 15th and 17th. Just based on bracket position, this looks to create early matchups against the top ranked fencers. Has that altered the training approach?
Soter: Our approach for the individual event has been to discuss and prepare for all possible opponents. We ahve fenced pretty much everyone over the past couple of yeras, so there are no surprises. Again, we feel that it will come down to execution.
FN: What challenges does the amount of depth in epee create when creating the training plan for the tournament?
Soter: The talent level in men’s epee clearly runs deeper than in any other weapon. That just means that we have to respect all of our possible opponents, and prepare for everyone, since there will be upsets.
FN: Psychology seems to play a very important part in fencing and especially in epee. How much has this team gained from the psychological training?
Soter: The men’s epee team has worked closely with sports psychologist John Heil over the past three years. We have sought to develop a team-based approach to anticipate and prepare for the psychological aspects of competition.
This has been a tremendous benefit to us, as it has enabled us to compete within our comfort zones much of the time, to focus on the things that are important, and to avoid distraction. We intend to continue this approach in the future. We feel that, the more we work on this aspect of the game, the more it will do for us.
[For the individual members of the team,]I have no result expectations. My performance expectation is that each team member will fence as hard as he can for every touch. Circumstances will largely affect whether that effort will translate into results.
This is the best men’s epee Olympic team the US has ever fielded, and it is the best prepared any US men’s epee Olympic team has ever been. We feel that we have done everything we could do to prepare for the Olympics, and that now we will go to Athens and do our best to turn that ability and preparation into results.