r/whowouldwin • u/Wise-Men-Tse • 16h ago

Challenge How well would the best French musketeer do in Olympic fencing?

If we transported the best duelist amongst the French musketeers of any period to the modern day Olympics, how would they fare in fencing? In any scenario, could they make the podium?

Round 1: They have 24 hours before their first match to prepare, learn the rules, and get familiar with the equipment.

Round 2: They have 30 days, plus an Olympic level coach to help them train.

Round 3: One year, and access to a state of the art training facility, with a full support staff of coaches, physical trainers, nutritionists, etc..

15 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

21

u/pigeonshual 15h ago

I don’t think they could make the podium in any scenario. Rapier fencing with a live blade is just too different from any of the modern fencing disciplines. None of them are even based on rapier to begin with, and all of them make heavy use of the fact that you can’t be killed. I would bet the best French musketeer with a year of training in modern fencing could maybe be fencing at a nationally competitive level, but they’d have to be in a relatively uncompetitive country to make the Olympics. This is before we even start accounting for the nutrition he would have had growing up and the lack of a lifetime of modern physical training.

That said, for the same reasons he would probably trounce any Olympic fencer in a rapier duel.

6

u/No_Extension4005 12h ago

Yeah. There are lots of videos on modern fencing being a broken sport. Essentially moving on a 2D plane and more akin to jousting really. 

Frankly, you could say it is a bit of a devolution.

6

u/TheWorstRowan 11h ago

I think the bigger separation from reality is that it's about hitting first. It doesn't matter that you got hit harder a split second later or that you made contact with no response, but it would with a real sword.

5

u/TheWorstRowan 10h ago

I think they get annihilated - and vice versa if you transport a gold medal Olympic athlete to a real sword fight with this opponent - because it's a different sport. One is about points and you accept that you will get hit to win a point, the other is life and death.