After making history at Tokyo Olympics, Bhavani Devi training for Paris 2024 under legendary sabre master Christian Bauer

Over the past three months, Bhavani Devi has repeatedly made small excursions outside her comfort zone. Earlier this month, she found herself swapping the narrow strip of the fencing piste for an even narrower base: a gymnastics balance beam. Standing en garde on the balance beam — albeit without a blade in her hand or any of the other paraphernalia of her sport — she stood facing off against another fencer at a gymnastics facility in the French city of Orleans. Later that day, she was asked to dangle off parallel bars at the same gymnasium. A couple of days later, she found herself trying her feet at the Colombian dance form of zumba. The tasks are part of the unique training methods employed by legendary fencing master Christian Bauer, under whom the Indian will train for the Paris Olympics cycle. Having made history at Tokyo 2020 earlier this year by becoming the first Indian fencer to compete at an Olympics, Bhavani has moved her base from Livorno, where she was training under Nicola Zanotti, to Orleans to train at Bauer’s academy. Bauer, a fencing coach who specialises in sabre, is the man behind multiple Olympic medals. At Athens 2004, he guided Aldo Montano to a gold in the men’s individual sabre event. At Beijing, four years later, he helped the Chinese women’s sabre team claim silver and Zhong Man the men’s individual gold. At London 2012 and Rio 2016, he was the sabre fencing coach for the Russians, leading them to multiple medals, including those for Yana Egorian and Sofya Velikaya in women’s individual sabre event. So, when he moved back to France to start his own academy to teach individual sabre fencers rather than taking up a gig with a national federation, Bhavani’s former coach Zanotti knew that that’s where she should train to get to the next level. Rather than clinging on to an ascendant athlete, the Italian coach reached out to Bauer to convince him to work with Bhavani. “Everyone in fencing knows Bauer. It was actually Nicola who wanted me to train with Bauer. It’s a great opportunity for me to train under such a legendary coach,” Bhavani told Firstpost. The GoSports-supported fencer said she will be training under Bauer till Paris 2024. “The zumba and balance beam sessions were new for me. But besides this, his style of fencing is very different. It’s a little hard to get his style, but I’m enjoying it,” said Bhavani. “I have many athletes who approach me to work with them. But I pick athletes that fit in my group. For me, it’s very important that the group is strong. It’s not necessary that they should be the world’s top ranked fencers. But the group must learn how to work together. I believe more in group work than in individual work. “In Italy, Bhavani was working mostly by herself under Nicola. But here, she must work in a group. It’s a different organisational system. I’ve actually known her for many years since she was working in Italy with Nicola. He’s a good friend. He asked me to help Bhavani since he could not work with her until Paris 2024. He works in the interest of athletes rather his own interests. That was one reason I accepted Bhavani at my academy. The other reason is that I like her as a fencer,” said Bauer. Besides Bhavani, the Frenchman’s training group currently includes World No 3 women’s sabre fencer Manon Brunet (who beat Bhavani at Tokyo) and India’s rising men’s sabre fencer Karan Gurjar. Not just unique exercises that draw her out of her comfort zone, the move to France will also mean more local competitions for the Indian fencer, said Bauer. 10 days ago, Bhavani won a local fencing event in Charleville loaded with multiple French sabre stars, such as Cecilia Berder (France No 3) and World No 30 Sara Balzer, who she beat in the final. “For me it was a surprise that she understood very quickly what has to be done. She’s a very smart athlete. We changed a few things because we needed to correct some small technical mistakes. She beat very strong fencers to claim the title,” said Bauer, who wants the Indian to climb higher in the world rankings than her current position as World No 50. ‘In 2021 and 2022, she has to travel to all competitions. I believe Bhavani has the quality to become a Top 10 fencer.”