Andrzej Witkowski from Adam Mickiewicz University served as a fencing referee during the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Shortly after his return, he shared his impressions about it.
What I remember from the Olympic Games was 40 degrees Celsius and a sea of volunteers. I judged the gold medal fight between an American and a Russian. The fight was very close and the winner was decided by small details. My decisions were right, which was confirmed by video verifications. I will also remember the beautiful big stands that were empty. It was a very sad sight, I hope that the next Olympic Games in Paris will be held with full stands. I regret the most that I didn't see anything in Tokyo or in Japan at all, unfortunately we were in the closed zone and we couldn't leave it.
It was the second time Andrzej Witkowski acted as a fencing referee during the Olympics. He made his debut during the Games in Rio de Janeiro. He has been a fencing referee for 14 years. After ending his competitive career (for 17 years he practised fencing), he became an arbitrator. At first, he only refereed fencing duels, but he quickly became a qualified sword referee. Currently, he is the manager of sports facilities at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.
Right after the decision to nominate him for Tokyo, Andrzej Witkowski made no secret of the fact that for fencing arbitrators the nomination for the Olympics is a great honour, as only 22 people from all over the world have been given such an opportunity.
This is an elite and very narrow group. Continental parity must be maintained, five or six judges from Europe are usually nominated. And as you know, there are a lot of applicants - he said.
In total, twenty four Polish referees, commissioners and technical delegates watched over the course of sports competition in Tokyo. Poles refereed Olympic wrestling, sailing, tennis, boxing, weightlifting, fencing, gymnastics, volleyball and hockey.
