I’ve got a lot of impressions concerning “Battle of the Nations”-2014 🙂 The venue was stunningly beautiful. Picturesque old medieval town, the town hall, cathedral, statues, emblems on the walls … and even the game, Nine Men’s Morris, carved on a stone near the cathedral…

A huge number of participants, busy medieval camp with rows of stalls, musicians, and, of course, the best fighters and teams from all over the world… it was an unforgettable experience! All my impressions simply cannot be covered by a single article, and without photos they will be insipid and unable to express my deep feelings concerning “Battle of the Nations”-2014… 🙂

I would rate the performance of Team Moldova as 8 out of 10. We lacked coherence, teamwork and training due to the fact we had little time to prepare for the trip. Among our strengths was the fighting spirit, as we had promised, no one gave up or withdrew from the competition, no one complained, and no one tried to cheat. All the fighters did their best.

I would like to thank Alexander Marek Puusepp (Estonia) and Maksim Khripko (Ukraine). Thank you, guys, we’re awaiting you! I also thank the National Teams of Estonia and Ukraine for moral and technical support in “5 vs 5″ battles, and spectators who supported us during the fighting!

In group battles Team Moldova took the 26th place out of 44 available. We were in the middle, but we can achieve better results. Moldova had 3 fighters for triathlon. Anatoliy Mogilda took the 26th place out of 54 available, I took the 22nd. But most of all we were pleased with the result of our veteran, Dmitriy Bannyy, who won the 17th place. He had showed a beautiful and memorable fighting, as a true representative of the old school 🙂 So, we were somewhere in the middle among the teams, and I think it was OK for the debut.

Needless to say, we wanted to fight with the top teams, namely Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland. We were lucky to fight with Poland two times. In the end, I joined the buhurt “Russia against all.” It was an exciting experience 😀

There were a lot of new teams in our group, no one knew what to expect, but, as it turned out, we were of about the same level. Moldova did not lose a single battle on the lists in its group, but, unfortunately, we failed to start the first battle against Mexico, and then, of course, those guys did not agree to hold a rematch. But we do not lose our hope to meet Mexico at “Battle of the Nations”-2015!

We’ve got a lot of experience! First of all, we’ll change our protective equipment for lighter sets. The armor I used at “Battle of the Nations”-2014 weighed over 30 kg, which is a lot, especially for triathlon, where you need to be very fast.

We’ll reduce weight not by using plastic elements or lighter swords, but by using good hardened steel, which will allow us to reduce the thickness of some protective elements by 20-30%, and therefore the weight of the sets. 20% of the weight of my armor is a lot.

And we won’t hold captain meetings right before the fights… 🙂

Now I know that if you want to go to “Battle of the Nations”, do not wait for anyone, do not think that someone will organize everything for you, cover all the costs. You have to work hard, be active and organize people to form the Team.

Oh, and be sure to take Dmitriy Bannyy with you, as he’s a jolly man 🙂

Oleg Sergheev,
captain of the National Team of Moldova

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