Home » Watch » 06ITA World Championships in Torino » Torino Blog » Oct 4, 2006
Torino Risotto
Fencing Pictures is proud to have Bill Ward on the FP Team! Bill is a television videographer/ editor specializing in high definition programming. His work has appeared on The Discovery Channel, HGTV, The Food Network, PBS and other networks. He is currently at work on a documentary chronicling the events of the 2006 season of Women's Saber team, culminating at the World Championships in Korea. Bill and his two children, Rebecca and William, admit to some familiarity with a saber.
It’s been a quiet couple of days for us, following Monday’s big saber night. Yesterday, Becca, US Epee team fencer Lacey Burt, Michael and Lisa Marx , Beth and I wandered through downtown Torino. There’s nothing quite like watching a couple of young ladies power shop their way through an endless series of Italian clothing shops.
For the first 6.5 hours.
Then you begin to think longingly of a nice session on the strappado bench…if only to get the kinks out of your back. By the way, what is it with Italian ladies shoes that are so small and so oddly designed? Their feet only fit about halfway into the shoes, which require the fashion seeker’s arches to be canted up so far, they look like inchworms with sciatica.
It was fun to see fencing gear incorporated into a vast number of storefront window displays. There were even giant plywood fencers erected in some of the plazas. Fencing posters are everywhere, as well as ads in all the papers. This town knows how to put on a fencing exhibition.
Torino has rapidly become our favorite Italian city. The people are amazingly polite, and unfailingly patient with our atrocious attempts at communicating. There are more architectural novelties to savor in every city block than there are grains of rice in a plate of risotto. I’ve eaten so much risotto this week that there is some guy named Luigi from the Italian Rice Import Federation who keeps following me around with pictures of his children and pamphlets from major Italian universities, repeating “gratzi, gratzi!” while tears run down his cheeks. I’m not sure what that’s all about.
We even stopped by the church where they used to keep the Shroud of Turin (hey, Ivan could still use it if the US Men’s saber team gets hot later this week) but it was closed…apparently so they could power-wash the steps to the church.
Lacey and Becca got to pose for pictures today with Italian saber deities Montano and Tarantino, who were walking the floor at the venue today after practice. There are articles in the paper every day about these two icons of Italian fencing. If “ritiri” means what I think it means, one of them may not be on the team next year. These guys are treated like rock stars in Italy, with women virtually swooning as they get an autograph. When flocks of schoolgirls start wheeling around the USA men’s saber fencers, we’ll know the sport has hit the Big Time.
Tomorrow it’s back to work. Today was a rest day for the competitors, but the team matches get going first thing in the morning….right after everyone enjoys a big bowl of risotto.
Luigi and his well-educated children thank you.