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‘Up and down’, fencer Bhavani awaits thrust of change
Having become the first Indian fencer at the Olympics in Tokyo, the 29-year-old talks about the pangs of change as she resets under a new coach in France in the build-up to the 2024 Games.
Bhavani Devi remains a cut above the rest in India as her 11th individual sabre gold and team title with Tamil Nadu at the senior fencing nationals in Pune over the weekend reiterated. Yet, she keeps coming back for them, even if it eats into the precious few days she gets to visit home from her French training base. Though “winning it again and again is important to keep my mental focus”, competing at the national level presents a unique challenge for India’s first Olympic fencer.
“Coming back to this level, which is different to where I train and compete, I have to fence in a particular way. You cannot fence in a very technical way with them (Indian fencers) because they will not react to those kinds of movements. So, you have to play in a particular way to win here, which is also important for the mind to adapt to different situations,” Bhavani said at the badminton hall of the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Mhalunge-Balewadi, the competition venue.
It, in a nutshell, is where the Tokyo Olympian finds herself in her fencing career. It’s been more than a year of adapting since shifting the training base from Italy to France after the historic Games outing in 2021. Pushed by her former coach Nicola Zanotti into training under reputed French coach Christian Bauer, who has produced Olympic medallists, Bhavani had been thrust into honing her skills with some of them in an entirely new setup and style at his academy in Orleans. While she feels the difference in quality and quantity of training, the winds of change are yet to blow as far as competitive results are concerned.
Over the last year in which she won the Commonwealth championship in August, the world No. 45 in sabre has been “up and down” in international events. Three World Cups from March to May last year saw her finish 52nd, 23rd and 113th. A 13th-place finish at the Asian Championships last June was followed by 21st at the worlds and 10th in a satellite tournament in Belgium. This year, she has been a creditable 26th and a lowly 89th and 72nd in three World Cups.
“Training-wise, I have been only going upwards from the start (in France). But in competitions, I’m still not fully ready with this kind of training,” the fencer from Chennai said. “I am adapting to things quickly, but to maintain that consistently is getting harder. But it’s not bad. I feel good, I’m positive. My coach is positive. It will come. Maybe this change is not helping me win right now, but when that change is complete, the results will be much better.”
The turnaround, in technique and mentality, has hardly been subtle from her pre-Tokyo days. It comprised unlearning the Italian style of fencing and going the French way under Bauer and his band of “champions and medal winners”, as Bhavani puts it. The training hours have doubled as much as the level while the reputed coach is also a taskmaster. At times he “shouts and screams when you make mistakes”. Technically too it’s been an almost 360-degree flip — right from “the position of my body, strategies and tactics, set-ups for the attack”.
“To pull that off for a consistent period is harder. Sometimes when you’re tired, you tend to go back to the old style almost unconsciously because it’s already in you. That’s the mistake I make when I mix both. Fencing is a sport where every little thing has to be right. Even if you miss one position or movement, you’ll lose control. So, it’s all in the mind.”
What’s also in Bhavani’s mind is her recent results that haven’t exactly got her brimming with belief. “It does affect a little bit, of course,” she said. “But you have to keep going. That’s what I did for Tokyo. Even leading up to that, I was up and down. But when the moment comes, you will be there. So, you have to just trust the process, keep working hard and never look back.”
Bhavani is therefore looking ahead, in a season that will have crucial steps for the Paris Games qualification. The Asian and world championships are the “most important” in that quest, the former also a precursor to the Asian Games in September-October. For now, Bhavani hopes it’s only a matter of time before her transformation process takes wing.
“Mentally and technically, I’m training much better. Only thing is, I need to be more confident in the new change and take that with me consistently in competitions. But it takes some time, and once I have it with me, I’ll get much better.”
