Training with the best

As most of you know, pentathlon is not a particularly popular sport in the US. Unlike some European countries, we dont have the sport culture for pentathlon here in the States. But we do have a phenomenal training facility and fantastic weather here in Colorado. So we have put our location to good use and invited two top international teams out to train with us this fall.

The Egyptian pentathlon team arrived here a few weeks ago and left today. They have two of the top women in the world and their men are also solid. It was a bit of the fire hose treatment to get back in shape with these guys here. We really only fence together, but it makes a big difference to have other athletes to bout in fencing.

The Russian team is the deepest and most decorated team in the world, and they came out here last weekend to train with us as well. The top six Russian athletes are here. To put the quality of this team in perspective, the 6th Russian athlete would easily make the World Team for almost any other country in the world. Currently Russia has the reigning Olympic Gold Medalist, the World Silver Medalist, a World Cup Final Champion, and a Junior World Champion. The Russian team will be here for the next few weeks, but I am thoroughly enjoying the chance to bout with these guys. I took three years of Russian in college, but my speaking skills are at best shaky and so communication is a bit tough. None of the Russians are proficient in English.

So the next couple weeks will be filled with as much fencing as possible as we try to hone our skills on the Russian team. Once the Russians go home, I'll start focusing more on my swim and run as we head into the winter.

Here is a picture of me fencing Andree Mosiev, the 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist, at a fencing practice this weekend. I actually got the touch on this one by hitting Mosiev right under his hand.