Rainard HS Foxtracks

Rainard Olympics Take the Gold!

For four weeks in late February and early March, Rainard students in the Intermediate, Middle and High Schools participated in the first Rainard Olympic games organized by Lori Miller PE teacher/coach extraordinaire. Students were divided into six teams with each team consisting of students chosen from the three levels and with the oldest member of each team serving as captain.

Event competitions were many and varied and included, among others, obstacle courses, hockey, pilo polo, extreme relays, mat ball and crazy kickball. Points were awarded at the end of each team competition and, if one of the teams demonstrated exemplary team sportsmanship, additional points were given.

The culminating event was held on Tuesday, March 11. In the cheering section were students from the Primary and Elementary classes as well as all Rainard faculty and staff members. On a beautiful spring day, teamwork and team spirit were much in evidence, and all participants were deemed to be true Olympians.

Following the conclusion of the games, the school assembled in the newly enlarged and renovated PE room for the awards ceremony. Taking the bronze medal were members of the Green Team led by Ellen Vaughan; the silver was awarded to the Purple Team led by Alex Beck; and the gold medal was earned by the White Team led by John Heggeland.

In addition, good sportsmanship medals were awarded to Katie Hughes, Allison Levine, Ellen Vaughan, and John Heggeland. Primary and Elementary students Peyton Berry, James Thorley, Grace Steakley, and Jonathan Piskovatskov were recognized for outstanding participation in their PE programs.

Our thanks go to Lori Miller for her energy, creativity and vision. We look forward to continuing this tradition,

Fencing challenges student; John Cramerus to represent U.S.

A nine year old boy goes to the movie Lord of the Rings and is impressed by Aragorn’s sword fighting. He tells his dad it looks like fun.

At eleven years of age, the boy is a student at Rainard, and fencing lessons are being offered after school. Dad registers his son.

A fencer is born.

John Cramerus, now fourteen and a freshman at Rainard High School, is currently ranked 6th by the U.S. Fencing Association in the Y14 (14 years and under) class. When asked why he spends 8-10 hours every week training at Andrey Geva’s Alliance Fencing Academy, John says with a smile that it’s fun, but it’s obvious that he takes it seriously when he starts explaining the intricacies involved.

Some people call fencing “physical chess”, and it seems to particularly appeal to gifted students. First, there are three weapons to choose from: the epee, the foil (or fleuret), and the saber. The instruments themselves differ in weight and in the design of the bell guard and blade. There are also differences as to where an opponent can be hit and in the rules of scoring. For example, with the epee, the swordsman is allowed to touch anywhere on the opponent’s body; with the foil, only torso and pelvis hits will count, and with the saber, only hits above the waist are allowed.

There is now electronic scoring for all three weapons, but judges are still required to rule on issues such as boundary and safety violations. For electronic scoring, each weapon is connected to a wire that runs up the sleeve and under the jacket and then is connected to a reel at the end of the designated combat area. This reel is then plugged into a scoring display with red and green lights to designate the winner of each touch. In addition, there are different compression requirements for the spring-loaded buttons on the tips of each type of weapon. With the epee, for example, 750 gr. of compression are required for a hit to be counted; with the foil, only 500 gr. of compression are required.

John fences with the epee and finds it mentally challenging because of the complexities involved. He explains that a fencer has to constantly consider footwork, timing, and moves (selection of parries and thrusts), as well as overall strategy and tactics. He goes on to explain that the U.S. Fencing Association ranks only the top 64 fencers in each class and that while he is ranked 6th in the Y14 class, he is concurrently ranked 37th in the Cadet class (16 years and under).

In John’s family, the credo holds that “the family who fences together stays together”. Pieter Cramerus, who teaches humanities and French classes at Rainard High School, is also a fencer and trains at Alliance Fencing Academy along with John, daughter Rebekah, and younger son Matthew, who is eleven and a Middle School student at Rainard. All four of them compete, and Matthew placed 10th in the Y10 class in the U.S. national championship in San Jose, CA, in July, 2009, behind another Rainard student, Nico Popovici, who placed 8th.

When asked what he sees for himself in the future, John says he has dreams of the Olympics, but he knows the journey he must make to get there. While fencing is dominated by athletes in their 20s and 30s, John talks about the oldest U.S. national champion, John Moreau, who became champion at the age of 52. (Coincidentally, Moreau and Pieter Cramerus trained together in the 1970s for the Olympic sport of Modern Pentathlon, which includes fencing, cross country running, swimming, pistol shooting, and show jumping of horses.)

Recently, because of his performance in a national Cadet tournament where he advanced to the round of 32, John was invited to represent the U.S. in a World Cup event in Goteborg, Sweden, on Jan. 31. He will be taking a planned absence from high school classes Jan. 28-Feb. 1. Needless to say, all of us (students and faculty) will be cheering for him!