IRON MAIDEN Singer Fences Olympic Silver Medal Winner In Oslo

According to MaidenRevelations.com, IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson faced off with the much taller Olympic winner Bartosz Piasecki just prior to the start of the Norwegian fencing championship.

Dickinson, 54, did well during the warm-up sessions at Bygdøhus in Oslo, but was thoroughly defeated as soon as the match kicked into gear.

"I had two points in a row," Dickinson told the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.

"He's kick-ass," Piasecki said about the singer. "He is short but incredibly fast, that's his weapon. He looked like Rocky when he arrived in a brown robe with his fencing kit in a shoulder bag."

After the match got serious, Piasecki took 5 points on Dickinson. The singer got stuck with 0 points in the final round.

"For me, fencing is training," Dickinson told Aftenposten. "I gave up competing in tournaments when I was 23, at that point I was ranked No. 7 in Britain."

"I fence because I enjoy it, and the by-product is that I end up getting in reasonably good shape. Actually, fencing is very similar to the way I run around on stage. Or maybe I run around on stage like that because I fence. Either way, it works for me."

Bruce started out fencing at the age of 13 in school, but only after being convinced by a teacher to try it. When he got into fencing, he discovered that it not only was about physical training, but giving the brain some exercise as well.

When he was 15, he became captain of the school team fencers and this gave him the opportunity to go to London to start a professional career. But he felt that he didn't really fit in there and also found it more interesting meeting friends down the pub.

The less he trained, the worse he became, and the more he wanted to do something else. In his late teens music started taking over his time and he pretty much quit fencing totally, until 1983 when one of the IRON MAIDEN roadies brought back his interest in the sport.

"I'm an aggressive defensive fencer," Bruce previously said about his style of fencing. "Since I'm rather short I have to try and get the opponent to make mistakes all the time. I am irritating, very intense and energic."