How is it that you are louder than all of France?

This question was posed to me while we were sitting around watching fencing on day two of the Olympics. It was our third event of the Games and the first time we got to see an American compete. Of course I was beyond excited to finally cheer for the red, white and blue. Our seats were on the opposite side of where the American was sitting but after sneaking past some volunteers we ended up getting some great seats. In fact, we were now located right behind the designated athletes seating area. Score!

Anyway, some Frenchies had made the same tricky maneuvering as us and were sitting in the same section now and as luck would have it the U.S. and France were about to face off. Obviously fencing isn't exactly a mainstream event in America, but it definitely is one of those that they love in Europe apparently.

So our American friend took the stage (I don't know what to call the competition area in fencing) and we just started going nuts. We had absolutely no idea who this guy was and we cheered for him like he was Michael Jordan back in the glory days of Chicago basketball. We were greatly outnumbered by French fans but we didn't care. We cheered louder, harder and longer than they did and even though our guy lost it was still totally worth it.

After the match (I have no idea what a round of fencing is called) this French guy turned to me and said, "How is it that you are louder than all of France?" I told him it was because we didn't smoke and gave him a smile. He just laughed and then we showed them how to really yell later when we cheered for the French guy who beat our American friend.

As it turns out fencing was a rather intense sport. The athletes were always jumping around and as soon as they scored a point they would rip off their masks and throw a fit.






OK, so fencing was far more fun than I thought it would be and afterwards we were leaving the venue and we met the family of the American who we had been cheering so feverishly for and they thanked us and told us we rocked for all of our enthusiasm :)