2014 SN Diary: Day 6, June 27

Projected (as of 5/31/2014):
• 458 individual and 53 team entries
• Morning events: 51 pools of Div I Men’s Epee and 15 pools (probably flighted) of Div I Women’s Saber
• Later in the day: 53 teams in Sr Men’s Foil, Sr Men’s Saber, and Sr Women’s Foil
• Expected end time: 6:00 pm

Actual:
–First thing in the morning, we installed the new build of the Fencing Time software. This was to correct an error discovered yesterday in the formula used to calculate team seeding, so we will avoid the kind of delay we had yesterday when we had to correct the team seeding by hand.

–29 withdraws at close of registration dropped the Div I ME down to 48 pools and a DE table of 256. The pools ran in good time, but the DEs had to grind to a halt once we sent out the round of 64 bouts because of the way FT handles bout ID numbers across the entire tournament. Until the entire 32 was complete, we could not generate bout slips for that point on (the repechage portion of the event), which delayed the event by an hour or so. For tomorrow’s Div I Women’s Epee, we’ve prepared blank slips and paper tables so we can push the 32 by hand until FT can generate the necessary rounds. Fortunately, tomorrow’s WE is the only other repechage event here, so after that, we won’t be faced with today’s specific problem again in this tournament.

–Officials in all categories–referees, medical, and armorers as well as BC–are starting to feel the traditional effects of SN service. By past experience, today’s Day 6 feels like well onto the downward slope, but today only just ends the first half, with the most difficult days yet to come. Most of us who’ve been here since the beginning would be happy to nap by 10:00 am now, and tempers are beginning to fray a bit. We are all aware of this, though–so far, at least–so we can make a conscious effort to be more patient with each other. How well and how long we will continue to be able to compensate for our increasing testiness, we shall have to wait and see.

–Tonight I opted again for a room service dinner–my 2nd in 6 nights. Going out to find dinner would take more time and energy than I can handle tonight.