Allow me to introduce myself...

My name is Allard. I've been lurking around on Steemit for a little while now and ever since I decided to setup an account (thanks @thetimminator for the little push in the back!) I have only commenting up until now. Hopefully I can find enough time to post a new story every now and then.

So let me tell you a little something about myself. I'm 34 years old, am married and we have two kids. I live in The Netherlands but I was born in Colombia, I have a Dutch father and a Colombian mother. Was raised bilingual in Spanish and Dutch, learned English by watching cartoons, listening to music and watching movies.

Ever since I was little I was raised to be an athlete in the sport of fencing. Here's a picture of myself made at the time I just learned to walk. If you're knowledgable about fencing you'll immediately notice that I'm left handed and that I hold an epee in my hand.

I've been fencing up until I was about 22 or 23 when I decided to quit due to a few reasons, two of them being unprofessionalism and the fact that I wasn't going to get rich with the sport (it's not tennis or soccer). I used to participate for The Netherlands and had some good results even though I only really got trained by my parents until I was about 14, after that I can't really say that I had a proper trainer. During my fencing years I've traveled all over the world, been in around 30 countries and had some great results. In 2000 I became 6th of the world in my category. Been in a few finals on world cup tournaments during my junior category years and ended as 5th of the world on the junior world ranking list. As a junior I also participated in the senior category and managed to reach the best 16 on two world cup tournaments for example. Participated in youth Olympic games and the Universiade as well.

When I tell people about some of my results I also like to mention that during those years I never lost against a fencer from Venezuela and one from Italy who both later managed to become Olympic champions (Tagliariol 2008 and Limardo 2012). So who knows what could have become if I continued to fence but then again... there were some fencers who I had never beaten.

I work in the IT business since 2004, mostly in roles as infrastructure test consultant/manager or as an ITIL process manager so that keeps me busy during weekdays. I'm currently very interested in the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain so you can expect me to post stories about these subjects every now and then and expect to see comments on stories that grab my attention.

To all fellow Steemit colleagues: keep up the good work and let's make this a high quality outlet for everyone.