He also placed third in the national épée championship for men over 60.

The Rev. James H. Adams will proceed to the World Championship in France to compete in the foil tournament next month.

"I hope to win," he said.

With 46 years of fencing under his belt, Adams appears to have a decent shot at it, too.

Adams, former pastor of Rockville Presbyterian Church now serving as interim pastor at Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., started fencing during his freshman year of college at Princeton University, where he majored in English.

He tried fencing instead of other sports because "I couldn't do anything athletically," though he had wanted to be an athlete, he said.

Adams practices fencing two to three times a week at the D.C. Fencers Club, typically polishing his parrying and riposting -- or defensive and offensive motions -- for two and a half hours or so at a time.

"Trust me, you get a workout," he said, adding that when he began fencing in college, "I had no idea what I was getting into."

Fencing is played with one of three weapons: the épée, the foil and the sabre. The three weapons vary in size and flexibility. Out of the three, Adams chose to develop his skills in épée and foil.

The épée and the foil are both point-thrusting weapons, whereas the sabre is a thrusting and a cutting weapon, requiring a different strategy and style of play.

Points are scored when a player touches the opponent's metallic "lamé," or jacket, with the tip of his or her weapon. At that point, a mechanism at the tip of the weapon is pushed down, sending an electronic signal through the lamé, which is hooked up to a scoring machine.

All matches are confined to a strip 6 feet wide by 40 feet long, though various matches are conducted differently. For example, foil and épée require a certain number of points to win, or else whoever has more points after a certain amount of time is the winner, while sabre matches are not timed at all.

To participate in the 2002-03 Summer National Championships, which lasted from June 28 to July 6, Adams traveled to Austin, Texas. He competed in the Veteran 60 and Over Men's Foil Championship, in which he placed first, and the Veteran 60 and Over Men's Epee Championship, where he placed third.

In fencing, the championship for each age group assigns competitors a certain number of points for how well they did in the standings. At the end of the U.S. Summer National Championship, points from previous championships are tallied in each category of weapon and gender, and the top four highest-scoring players in each category are accepted into the U.S. team for the World Championship of their particular age group.

Adams' final standings came as a surprise to him because he had been focusing on the épée and neglecting the foil; he hadn't even practiced with the foil since March. So he had planned to win the épée tournament and make the veterans' men's épée team, and lose the foil tournament and not make the foil team.

So much for those plans.

"It was quite unexpected," he said of his final standings. "I was exhilarated by the foil and amused by the épée."

The irony was made greater by the fact that while Adams has always thought of himself as a foil fencer, he has traditionally been better at épée, he said.

"Foil is more about precise timing," he said. "The older I get, the harder it is to keep my timing right."

Foil also requires more mobility than épée, he said, which is why more older people tend to fence épée than with any other weapon.

Adams intends to keep fencing as long as he can.

"No point in quitting," he said, adding that he is still learning the art of the sport.

While many people find the intricacies of fencing confusing, Adams said that once a person learns the rules, the matches take on shape.

"Good fencing is very pretty to watch, regardless of weapon, gender or age," Adams said.