Military Olympians
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Kelsey out in opener
By HELENE ST. JAMES Gannett News ServiceBEIJING—Seth Kelsey wasn't able to read his opponent Sunday morning, leaving the American with an opening-match loss in individual epee at the Olympic Games.
That disappointment, though, won't stop Kelsey from enjoying his time in China's capital. While he plans to hit many of the enthralling sights Beijing and the surrounding area offers, like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, Kelsey also has something unique planned: A culinary lesson.
On Wednesday, he and his family are scheduled to participate in a one-day cooking school.
"We go in the morning and learn to cook some kind of Chinese food, and then we get to eat it for lunch," Kelsey said. "Then in the afternoon we'll go to a restaurant and learn to make dumplings, and have those for dinner. We thought it'd be fun to learn to cook some Chinese food, so my dad did some searching on the Web."
Kelsey, a captain in the Air Force reserves who is in the World Class Athlete Program, has kept an on-line diary of his adventures in Beijing: www.bracethyself.blogspot.com.
A few days into the trip his entry was titled "En Garde Beijing for Seth Kelsey." His Beijing fencing experience, though, lasted just 8:53. Kelsey, seeded fifth, kept pace with 28th seed Fabrice Jeannet of France for much of the bout, but at 10-all, Jeannet claimed three straight points and was able to convert that lead into a victory.
"It's disappointing," Kelsey said. "I feel like I invested a lot of time and training for 10 minutes of fencing.
"I started off slow. I wasn't as confident as I could be, and he did some good things and then changed it up a bit. In the beginning it was press, press, press and attack, and then at the end, he was mixing it up more. That made it harder for me to predict when to go. I've fenced him before, and have never beaten him, so when I saw him in my draw, I knew it would be a hard match. He fenced well."
Helene St. James writes for the Detroit Free Press