mmmkay , will you preserve the 3:2 ratio in your ideal crop? In my opinion that ratio is very important, even somebody I know doesn't care about it so much.

I don't agree. The picture, as shown, does not work for me because there is too much dead space, so much so that the energy of the moment is lost. I also can't help but squint at the scoreboards to try to read the numbers - they are a distraction. Now, I'm a big fan of Laforet's work, but this is definitely not one of his stronger photographs. It's a good attempt but ultimately a failure for me, but at least it's an interesting failure. As for the technical comment about "point and shoot" cameras - the problem is that there aren't many consumer point-and-shoots ("consumer" meaning auto-mode only) made at the time of this writing that will meter the scene correctly. You would definitely need a manual override of some sort to avoid severe overexposure resulting from the metering being fooled by the dominant blacks in the scene.

How to improve this photograph? I would probably do a severe crop, right down to just above the fencers' heads and in from the right to just barely include the scoreboard to which the right-hand-side fencer's rear leg is pointing. As I mentioned earlier I don't like the scoreboards being there, but the one near the fencer is necessary to balance out the one at the far left of the scene. The most important sub-detail in the photograph, the Olympic rings, is preserved in the crop, as is the streak of blue which nicely interconnects the fencers to the Olympic rings. As a complementary color, the blue also balances out the redness of the scoreboards, making them a little less distracting.