Letter: Fencing coverage misses the point

I was surprised and saddened at the Appeal-Democrat's poor coverage of the Olympics fencing news on Aug. 10.

I originally read about the American women's victory in this sport the previous night in the online version of a small-town German newspaper. That town, about the same size as Yuba City, devoted a whole paragraph to the story, including the names of all three U.S. medal winners.

The following morning I was anxious to learn more details in our own paper, and found only one sentence devoted to the story: "Mariel Zagunis won the first U.S. gold medal of the Beijing Games, leading an American sweep Saturday in women's saber fencing." Very disappointing indeed. The names of the silver and bronze winners weren't even mentioned. Other sports, such as cycling and judo, merited their own paragraph with a bold-print heading, even when the winners weren't Americans.

So why did an American sweep, including the very first U.S. gold medal of the games, get a measly single sentence tacked onto the end of a Michael Phelps article? In case the editors think there is no local interest in the sport, I would point out that there is a fencing club at River Valley High School, as well as a fencing class every Tuesday night at Yuba College (open to all ages). I know they would appreciate better coverage of their sport.

Linda Maas
Yuba City