RIO DE JANEIRO — A fencing bout, even at the Olympics, is generally fairly straightforward. The two combatants face each other, a tone sounds, they lunge, and a few seconds later someone has scored a point.
A match seldom looks much like the wildly theatrical sword duels you might see in “Robin Hood” or a pirate movie.
It is all the more remarkable, then, when the American Olympian Miles Chamley-Watson whips his sword around the back of his head to score a point on his befuddled opponent.
That eye-opening move, now known as the Chamley-Watson, is a touch of flamboyance in a formal, sometimes staid sport.