People of HMB movement
Andy Di Francesco,
captain of National team of Argentina
…concerning her Team
This year we have improved our technique. We have trained a lot. And now we are more prepared than last year, but we still one of the youngest teams and we need more experience. We want to learn from the rest of the national teams which really know their business.
We have a lot of new fully armored fighters who were training hard to be ready for this BotN. But Argentina still has economic problems, as it was in 2013… The tickets are almost 3 times more expensive than last year… Only 5 fighters can afford themselves to go to Croatia… So, we’ll have the minimum of fighters again. This is our way… Each step means blood, sweat and tears to get whatever we want.
This year we wanted to put one man in “1 vs 1.” But as there are only 5 of us, we cannot take the risk to get one fighter injured or tired too much, and not to be 100% effective in the “5 vs 5.” So we are not participating in triathlon for now.
There will be only 2 guys who took part a year ago. They are Juan Manuel Chevasco Diaz and Marcos Villani. They are heads of clubs, and have been practicing reenactment for more than 10 years in Argentina…
?he medieval movement is quite new here, as we don’t have medieval history in this land.
Concerning women’s category… I will participate in the “1 vs 1” women’s category. I hope to be worthy representative of our national colors at “Battle of the Nations”. It was a hard way. I had to work a lot to get such an opportunity. I dreamt all my life to be part of such movement. And now I am a captain of the National team and representative in women’s category. So I have a great responsibly and I will try to deal with it as best as I can.
We expect to improve and show the rest of the Teams the result of our hard work within the last year. Our experience is growing. Every day we put new energy and new ideas to help this sport develop in our country. We do not only train, we are developing a national federation. Medieval combat is not a common thing in Argentina, so we have to bust prejudices. We have to involve as many as possible interested people to this movement, to make Argentina knowledgeable in Historical medieval battle. We help interested people and groups from all over the country to create clubs, make their own armor, and start practicing HMB.
As I’ve said before, it was a long and hard way. But also it is so much fun and it’s really exciting that we cannot stop the progress and should move forward.
One day we will be on the top. But time will tell everything. We will show our best.
We’ll never surrender, never stop.
Interview by
Elisabeth Irha
HMBIA NEWS
