First day at the Olympics and once in the airport, I thought we’d be rounded up like cattle and lined up into endless queues to go through security. But to my surprise, we got through customs in record time and waited maybe 5 minutes for our luggage. Pretty good start.

Event # 1 -- Women’s Epée at the Excel Stadium. Sherraine (Schalm) had her first match to get to the top 16 against Shin A. Lam from Korea. Sherraine lost a close match 12-15. I was upset she didn’t make it as she had worked so hard for this. Then again, qualifying for the Games, 18 months after having her first child was quite an accomplishment. She may have a future in coaching -- watch her coach her daughter on the intricacies of fencing! (see video)

I was upset, but not as much as Sherraine’s opponent, who got mixed up in a huge controversy in her match to go into the finals. The match against her German opponent went into sudden death and Shin had priority, which means, all she had to do to win was not get scored on. There was 1 second left -- the German attacked, no score and the timer hadn’t moved, it was still at 1 second. The German attacked again, still no point and once more the timer had 1 second left. Finally her opponent attacked a third time and scored a point, but the timer still indicated 1 second to go. The German athlete either had the speed of a praying mantis, the neurokinetics of Neo in the Matrix or there was a problem with the timekeeping!

The appeal took over an hour to process with the Korean athlete staying on the “piste” the whole time.

This was a big challenge to the coaches involved. The Korean Coach did a good job trying to calm his athlete down, keeping her hydrated and ready for, at the very least, a bronze medal match. Unfortunately, the Koreans lost their appeal so Shin had to compete for bronze. She started off strong, taking the lead, but eventually lost the match to the Chinese athlete. She had gold medal potential, but instead her dreams were shattered. Coaching is not an easy job -- the Global Coaches House will help coaches deal with High Performance issues, with sessions like “Managing Performance Under Pressure (Anxiety Management)”.

More exciting experiences to come! Follow me on Twitter (@gerardlauziere) and on coach.ca.