I WILL be the first person to admit that I have not been following the coverage of the Olympics although I did catch some on the BBC when I had a flying visit back in the north east this weekend.

But yet again I was underwhelmed that fencing barely got a mention although I did catch a brief clip of an epee match during the coverage of the modern pentathlon. But there was very little mention of the earlier contests in the actual fencing events during the early days of the contest.

And there was very little mention of progress during the news daily reports and there was no coverage on the BBC iPlayer when I did a quick search earlier.

Although, after an online search, I did find some clips showing one competitor yelling at the judges (which I found quite disturbing) and another of one contestant who took part despite being heavily pregnant but that was through a different broadcaster.

I am presuming the lack of coverage is because the Team GB fencing team rarely gets any medals in the discipline despite it being one of the original sports when the Olympics were resurrected into the modern age way back in 1896.

I must confess that I have a vested interest because I myself am a lapsed fencer having first discovered the sport in early 1989. I suppose I watched too many swashbuckling films, featuring the likes of Errol Flynn and Oliver Reed, when I was younger and my interest was sparked when I heard that there was the Harlequins Fencing Club which one or two of my friends attended in Sunderland.

I have to admit I loved it and the rules are fairly simple – hit the other guy with the pointy end before they hit you. I mean we even managed to practice during the summer months at the local bowls club.

I did enjoy competing in fencing competitions and my claim to fame’s getting to the third round of the Tyneside Open when I was thwarted by a certain Henry De Silva.

He was a massive and intimidating barrel chested chap who managed to overpower me by basically charging at me full pelt on the piste. It was only later when I was browsing secondhand book shops in London that I found a work on the history of fencing by none other than Henry De Silva. So the life lesson here is don’t judge a book by his middle aged cover.

Having said that when I moved away to Sheffield in 1991 I did not really find another fencing club and it was the same when I moved to Barrow-In-Furness where the closest club was in Preston.

I briefly returned in the mid-1990s and early 2000s but I really got back into the sport in June 2017 when I joined the Herdwick Fencing Club. It was good to get back into it but it was short lived when I left at the Cumberland & Westmorland Herald in Penrith and moved to the Courier in Inverness in 2019. There was a club in Culloden which I attended once just before the first Covid-19 lockdown so I never really returned.

And now I am back in Carlisle so hopefully I will pick up the sword in September but please don’t expect me to make an appearance at the next Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

Like most people I started out fencing foil, which was the sport version of the small sword which is apparently the most lethal duelling weapon in history, but I later changed over to epee, which was the sport version of the rapier. I liked it because the whole body was a target – yes you could even score a hit on your opponent’s big toe. But I might actually try my hand at sabre which traditionally was the weapon of the cavalry.

Having said that when I say that I am a fencer people are surprised because it is not the sport that they would expect a working class lad from the north east of England to take up because it is perceived as an elitist activity. But they are also surprised when I tell them that I am a journalist because of the same reasons. Having said that if there is a club near you then give it a go you might be pleasantly surprised as it is open to all no matter what your background is.